Home
by WastedHeart
Summary: After blowing off steam with Garrus, Shepard gets cold feet. She decides they should just be friends, but how long will she be able to deny the depth of her feelings for him? Complete. Sequel 'Where You Belong' now up.
1. Wake up call

**Update (17/04/11): Sequel, 'Where You Belong' now up!  
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**Update (27/03/11): Chapters edited to correct spelling/grammar errors. One minor continuity error fixed (Oops). There are probably still some mistakes left here and there, but I did my best! Very minor changes also made to the content of the epilogue. I've started working on the sequel to this story now, so this version of Home will probably remain the final one.  
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**Original intro (21/11/10):**

**This story is going to be my first (ever) attempt to write a piece of fiction with more than one chapter. It's based around a Shepard who is mostly paragon, an adept and has the colonist and sole survivor backgrounds. It takes place around a week after the destruction of the collector base, but before the events of the Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC. **

**The story will be more serious than the two one-shots I've already posted on this site, although I hope not totally devoid of any humour. I have almost all of it planned out already and will try to update once a week.**

**I'm still finding my feet as a fiction writer and feel pretty nervous about posting this so any reviews will be very, very much appreciated. Criticism is fine as long as it's constructive. Just remember I'm new at this! I'm also beta-less, and probably going to stay that way, so feel free to pm me if you notice any major mistakes.**

**Thanks to anyone who has read, reviewed or favourited my other two little stories, it gave me the courage to post this :)**

**Disclaimer: Mass Effect belongs to Bioware.**

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Commander Shepard stood on the Normandy's bridge feeling a little dizzy as the light from the nearby galaxy map danced around her. She'd spent most of the last sixteen hours helping the crew patch up areas of the ship that had been damaged in the attack on the Collector base and now all she wanted to do was crawl into a warm bed and finally get some sleep. Instead she'd somehow got stuck talking to Kelly Chambers.

Shepard listened fairly patiently as Kelly updated her on how the rest of the crew was feeling and reminded her, for the thousandth time, to check her private terminal for unread messages. She liked the Yeoman, but no matter how good it had felt to get her back from the collectors the week before, right now her company was a little trying.

Eventually Shepard decided she couldn't take anymore. Truthfully, she hadn't been much in the mood for talking to anyone lately. "Thanks for the update, Kelly," she said, as soon as the Yeoman paused for air, "If that's everything, I think I'll head up to my quarters, lock the door and collapse in a heap."

She went to move away, but Kelly placed a restraining hand lightly on her arm. "Commander, wait a moment please. There is one last little thing I'd like to talk to you about if you don't mind."

Shepard couldn't stop herself from glancing towards the elevator, but she quickly pulled her eyes back to Kelly. "Oh...fine. What is it you want to say?"

"Well, this is rather awkward, and I don't mean to interfere, but I think it might be good idea for you to visit Garrus if you have the time, Commander."

For a few seconds, Shepard stared mutely at Kelly, hoping she somehow hadn't heard her right. Her relationship with Garrus had been in a complete mess for days now, ever since they'd both come back, mostly intact, from the collector base and she'd somehow ended up telling him that blowing off steam with him had been a mistake, that it would better, more sensible and safe, if they went back to being just friends. She'd thought about him a lot since then, but no one on the Normandy had been brave enough to try to talk to her about him. She'd been starting to hope that they were going to act like nothing had ever happened between the two of them and stick to gossiping as soon as her back was turned. No such luck.

Shepard ran her hands through some of the knots and tangles in her hair as she struggled to work out what to say next. She couldn't help wondering how long Kelly had been mustering up the courage to have this little chat with her.

"What exactly makes you think that?" she asked in the end.

Kelly looked at her with wide eyes. "You haven't seen much of Garrus lately, have you? I suspect he thinks you're avoiding him."

"You 'suspect'?"

"It's a small ship, Commander. Things have a tendency to travel."

"Right, I see," Shepard said and then simply trailed off. Maybe she had been avoiding Garrus, but she couldn't quite bring herself to admit that out loud, she knew if she did then she would feel like a heartless bitch. It wasn't like she was planning to stay away from him forever anyway, just until she was in a better frame of mind about the whole situation. Unfortunately so far she hadn't made much progress towards that goal, if anything she felt worse now than when things had first gone wrong.

Shepard drew in a breath. "I'm sorry if he thinks that," she said, keeping her voice calm and steady, "I've been busy. The ship's repairs are taking longer than anyone expected and we're all in a difficult position. Somehow I don't think the Illusive Man is so keen to be my very best friend since I destroyed his toy."

Kelly offered her a smile. "It does sound like you're under pressure, but couldn't you spare just a couple of minutes to go visit Garrus? He seems lonely."

Apparently she was determined to play councillor today; Shepard had to look away from her. "I'll go see him soon_."_

"That's good to hear," Kelly replied, "When exactly?"

She was still smiling and, although she meant well, it was starting to get more than a little annoying. Shepard wanted to be left alone and, aside from that, she had always found it difficult to understand people who were happy all the time and acted like everything in the universe was all sunshine and bunnies when clearly there was so much sadness out there. She couldn't help thinking that Kelly belonged in a Disney movie, not on a Cerberus vessel out in the middle of space.

"Soon," Shepard said, putting as much emphasis as she could on the word, "But not today. I'm not exactly in a chatty mood and I don't want to make him feel worse."

"I'm sure you won't."

"Well, honestly, I'm not." As she finished speaking, Shepard grasped her hands together behind her back to stop them from ending up back in her hair, which she guessed was already starting to resemble some kind of large bird's nest.

She just wasn't sure if she was ready to face up to what had happened with Garrus. Maybe in a couple more days she would be. It was possible.

"Right now isn't a good time for this, Kelly," she said, "I haven't been sleeping well since...since the battle with the collectors. I'm tired."

Shepard let out a yawn to prove her point, but it was real enough. She couldn't remember the last time she'd been able to sleep through the night.

Kelly looked at her sympathetically, but instead of letting her leave, launched into a long tirade. "Commander, I don't mean to be pushy, but I think this is important." She seemed determined to keep her eyes fixed on Shepard's face as she spoke. "Garrus seems to be carrying a lot of sadness with him at the moment and he could use your help sooner rather than later. He misses you and I think it would be much better if you went to talk to him now, rather than leaving it for a few days. The two of you were such good friends until recently and it would be a very bad idea to risk losing a special bond like that for no real reason."

Sherpard opened her mouth to reply, but then ended up shutting it again because she couldn't think of anything intelligent to say. Kelly was starting to make a bit too much sense for her liking. It was far too easy to forget the Yeoman could actually be good at her job because she spent most of her off-time talking complete nonsense or making eyes at a clearly uncomfortable Thane in the mess hall.

"Commander, are you okay?" she asked when Shepard failed to speak.

"No," she replied, and then immediately regretted it, "I mean, not exactly. Look, Kelly, I understand why you're trying to get me to do this, but I..." Shepard gulped in some air, "I just don't think I know what to say to Garrus anymore."

"Speak from your heart."

"That's far easier said than done. This is real life, not some old Hollywood movie where everyone walks off hand in hand into the sunset on the end."

Kelly smiled at her again. "Maybe, but I think just seeing you again will cheer Garrus up. Do it for him. You can't keep sticking your head in the sand; this problem is not going to go away on its own. I can tell he's hurting and the crew are getting a tad worried about you both."

She moved closer to Shepard and put her hand on her arm for a brief moment before moving it away again. "I'm not going to pretend to know what went wrong between the two of you, but I think Garrus needs you right now."

At Kelly's last words, Shepard gripped her hands together so tightly that she felt her nails start to dig into the flesh.

Garrus had always been there when she needed him. Always.

No matter how uncomfortable it made her, no matter how embarrassed she felt around him now, she was going to have to return the favour. Or at least try to. He deserved that much. The only reason she'd been able to cope with all the ridiculous things that had happened to her over the last few months was because he'd been there by her side the whole time.

"You're not going to let this go, are you?" she asked Kelly.

"No, Commander, I don't think so."

"And you really think he wants to see me?"

"Yes."

"Well, okay then," she said after a long pause, struggling to get out the words. "I'll go talk to him and try to cheer him up. Maybe I can tell him a few jokes or make balloon animals or something."

Kelly gestured towards the elevator. "I think he's in the main battery at the moment, Commander."

Obviously she thought if Shepard didn't leave to go to see Garrus right that second then she would keep putting it off forevermore. Perhaps she was right. The truth, if Shepard had cared to admit it, was that she had already let the situation drift for days too long.

She stared at the metal doors. "I guess I'll go now then."

"You won't regret it Commander," Kelly chirped, beaming at her.

"God, I hope not. Although I guess at this point I probably can't make things any worse."

"It will be okay," Kelly said, "Having a nice chat with him might even do you some good."

Shepard doubted that. She had no idea what she was even going to say to him, but figured, "Hey Garrus, sorry for I've been acting like a complete ass recently, it's nothing personal," probably wasn't going to cut it. Still, she somehow forced herself to walk to the elevator, step inside and select deck three.

She saw Kelly wave at her as the doors began to close and had to stop herself from running right back out again. Without a doubt, this was going to be incredibly awkward. The last time she'd had a proper conversation with Garrus, she'd spent the entire time trying to explain to him why him their night together should stay a one time thing. Ever since then things had not been so good and it was all her own fault.

For weeks before they'd finally got together, she'd spent most of her spare time alone in her quarters obsessing about how much she wanted him, how much she needed a bit of comfort after everything she'd been through. At no point had she sat down and thought about how blowing off steam with him would affect their relationship, but time kept moving on and suddenly they were two hours from going through the relay, he was right in front of her and it was now or never.

In the end she'd gone through with it, and physically everything had worked out fine, better than fine, but later, when they were just lying together, she hadn't known what to do. It was all so real and Garrus was looking at her in a new way that she didn't quite understand.

She'd got a bit freaked out after that, but she'd still invited him to her quarters again once the battle with the collectors was over and done with. He'd arrived up minutes later. They'd started talking and it was going okay until he'd tried using her first name. No one had called her that since she'd lived on Mindoir. He was getting so close to her and she'd just known in that moment that she couldn't handle it. The idea of trying to have something more lasting with him scared the hell out of her and so she'd decided to end their relationship before it could really start.

The next day, Garrus had attempted to talk to her like everything was normal between them. Hell, he'd been brave enough to try to crack a few weak jokes, but she knew him too well, she could see he was hurting and so eventually she'd decided the best thing to do was to hide from him for a little while.

At one point, she'd accidentally jumped into the men's bathroom just to avoid ending up face to face with him. The memory of trying to explain what had just happened to the two terrified male crewmembers she'd almost fallen on top of could still made her face go red. Since then, she'd tried not to set foot anywhere apart from her quarters, the bridge and the engine room. All places that she knew Garrus rarely went into. She really was that pathetic.

Shepard shifted uncomfortably in the elevator. She wanted so badly to be somewhere else, but only seconds after that thought passed through her mind, the doors opened and deck three was stretched out in front of her. She was sorely tempted to press the button for her quarters and run away again, but then she thought of Garrus spending another day hurt and alone, needing her, and ended up stepping out of the elevator instead. She just couldn't forget what Kelly had said.

Shepard looked down the corridor; Garrus was just fifty metres away now. She could make it.

Keeping her pace steady, she started to head as casually as possible in direction of the main battery. She hoped and prayed that anyone who saw her would just think that she happened to be out for a nice leisurely stroll. Unfortunately, nobody seemed to be fooled. She could feel so many eyes on her as she crossed the mess hall because apparently she was heading to visit Garrus right when everyone on the entire ship had stopped to have their evening meal. She couldn't really blame them for staring though. She had made no secret of how much she... _liked_ Garrus, spending hours with him most days even though she already took him on every mission. Now they weren't speaking.

In the end, it took less than a minute for Shepard to reach the entrance to the main battery, but when she got there she had to stop just outside the door to calm herself the hell down. She knew if she took one more step forward then it would open and Garrus would be right in front of her.

Unwilling to move forward yet,she kneaded her hands together and found herself staring at the glowing green light on the door until it started to blur across her entire line of vision. A couple of minutes went by and she kept standing there, like a fool, hoping to God that none of the crewmembers were still watching her. Given her odd behaviour over the last week, however, she knew that they all probably were.

If she was really going to try to fix this instead of running away again then it was definitely time to get on with things.

Shepard shook herself and finally stepped forward. The door flew open straight away and she somehow managed to keep going until she was standing in the middle of the main battery, back in the room where all of this had started.

Garrus was working on his beloved calibrations as usual, but he turned towards her as soon as he heard her footsteps and Shepard felt a strange swooping sensation in her stomach when they finally came face to face. She'd forgotten how bad his injuries from the gunship were because at some point she must have stopped noticing them. Now the bandage covering the right side of his head seemed so large.

"Shepard..." Garrus blinked and seemed to struggle to think of what he should say next. In the end all that came out of his mouth was, "Need me for something?" He was surprised to see her. She couldn't blame him.

"No, not really," Shepard said, "I thought you might like some company."

"Oh."

The two of them stared awkwardly at each other, somehow managing to avoid having any direct eye contact, before Garrus finally spoke. "Well, it's definitely nice seeing you again." His eyes flicked up and down her body. "You look...well. Those wounds from the collector base are almost completely gone now."

Shepard vaguely ran her hand across her cheek, which until recently had been marred by a long cut. She knew he was trying to sound light and airy but it didn't quite work. It took a few seconds before she was able to drag another sentence out of her own mouth. "You're looking well too."

Strictly speaking, that wasn't true, he looked just as tired as she did and maybe a little pallid. Could turians look pallid? Still, Garrus seemed pleased to hear her say that or maybe he was just glad to be in the same room with her again, it was hard to tell.

"Thanks," he replied and the conversation ground to another wonderful halt.

"I'm sorry I haven't seen much of you over the last few days," Shepard said eventually, "I was...well I don't really have a proper excuse. I'm just sorry. It's been too long since we've had a chance to chat."

She couldn't believe how bland and stupid her own words sounded to her, but then neither of them were particularly good at talking about their emotions. Perhaps skirting around the real issues made more sense for them. Shepard knew Kelly probably hoped they would have a long cathartic chat and end up crying in each other's arms, she also knew that wasn't likely to happen.

She chanced a smile at him. "So...how are the calibrations going?"

"Good. Same as usual. I can't complain."

"Great."

Garrus shifted on the spot. "So...what have you been up to lately?"

"Oh, a lot of things, repairs mainly. The Normandy took one hell of a beating last week. Well, you know, you were there..." She trailed off.

"Sounds like you've been busy."

Shepard took a moment to stare at her ugly shoes before forcing herself to speak again. "Yeah, yeah...I have been." God this was hard. "So, Garrus, as much fun as this, ah, small talk is, is there anything you would like to talk about while I'm here? Anything you need to get of your chest? Anything you want to ask me?"

He didn't answer straight away. Shepard could not remember the last time she'd had such a stilted conversation with anyone. This was worse than her last 'interview' with Khalisha Al Jilani and she'd been fantasising about punching her the entire time they'd been talking. She already couldn't wait until she could walk right back out those doors and return to telling herself that everything was just peachy.

"Garrus? Should I just go? Kelly somehow convinced me that coming here might be a good idea, but if it's not then I can leave."

"No, don't go," he said quickly, really looking at her for the first time. "Look I'm not good at stuff like this, but I just want you to know that I'm sorry if I presumed... if I said something wrong when I came up to your quarters after we took on the base. I didn't mean to overstep the mark. I just want things to go back to the way they were before."

"You don't have anything to apologise for," Shepard said softly, "It's fine. Don't worry about it. Everything's fine. We're still friends, right?"

"I guess so, but you haven't been coming down here and you haven't been taking me on missions. You've been bringing Miranda instead."

Shepard frowned, she hadn't realised he'd caught on to that. "Garrus," she said, "I've only left the ship twice since we beat the collectors. One of those trips was to get replacement parts from a space station crawling with low-lifes and asari hookers. I felt like I needed to disinfect myself afterwards. The other was to respond to an urgent distress call which turned out to be five hundred years old. The rest of the time I've been working on repairs or mining. You haven't missed out, honestly."

"That's not really the point."

Shepard took a small step back as he took one forward. Some of the agitation, and maybe even anger, he'd been trying to hide was starting to come through on his face.

"You used to spend so much time with me," Garrus said, "Ever since you picked me up on Omega, I haven't left your side and I guess I thought that's the way you wanted things to stay."

"It is, Garrus. It's only been the last week that things have been a little, ah, strange."

"I know but it...it just doesn't feel right. It should be me that's watching your six, not someone else. I don't want you to get hurt."

"That's very sweet," Shepard said, trying to keep her voice from quivering, "But please don't take this all so personally. I trust you more than anyone else on this ship, I just thought I should rotate the team for a little while to give us both some breathing space."

"I guess I can understand that, but we have to get past this." He stopped directly in front of her and looked deeply into her into her dark brown eyes. "Just say you'll take me with you on the next mission. Come on, Shepard."

She inhaled sharply and couldn't seem to break eye contact with him, even though she wanted to. Years of fighting meant she could formulate battle strategies in a matter of seconds and yet here she was standing with her mouth hanging open, unable to decide on the right course of action. She knew agreeing to take him would make him feel better, but she also knew it could mean she'd spend the next mission she went on completely distracted. What the hell was the right thing to do? She wished a sign would come down from some higher power and give her a hint or that Kelly would pop up and offer her some advice. In the end nothing happened and he was still waiting for an answer.

"Okay," she said eventually in a small voice that sounded to her almost like it belonged to someone else.

"Good, I'll make sure you don't regret it," Garrus replied straight away, speaking so quickly that it made Shepard think he was afraid she'd change her mind. "It'll be just like old times."

Shepard nodded. She was pleased to see how much happier he looked now, but she still started to move further away from him. Her brain felt fuzzy and tired. In some distant, treacherous corner of her mind, she was suddenly thinking about was how nice it would feel to have his arms holding her tightly, so that she could barely draw breath. She had to leave. Right now.

"I should probably go. Unless there's anything else?" She knew after everything that had happened between them that it was only polite to ask that, but she was very much hoping he wouldn't want to say anymore. Unfortunately, he clearly did.

"There's just one last thing." Shepard noticed his mandibles were fluttering more than usual as he spoke and he'd gone back to avoiding her eyes. "I'm glad you came, Shepard. I've missed you."

"I've missed you too, Garrus. A lot," she said, and it was true, "But I really have to go. I have things to do, you know?" Shepard's last words came out in a rush and by the end of the sentence she was already edging towards the door.

Garrus inclined his head towards her. "Right… we'll talk again, later. Thanks."

Shepard headed to the exit as fast as she could without breaking into a sprint and turned back to see Garrus return to tapping at his console as the doors closed. She stayed standing just outside the room, only five metres away from him, staring at the green light again and wishing she could find the strength to go back in and sort things out properly. The talk hadn't been a disaster, but so much had been left unsaid and her own feelings were still a confused mess. After a few minutes, however, she decided it was best just to leave him alone for now and started to head back to the elevator with her head down.

She went straight to her quarters and crawled into bed, ignoring the few tears that had started to fall from her eyes.


	2. Nightmares

**I was up to 4am last night editing this chapter so hopefully it has come together okay. **

**Chapter 3 should be going up next Sunday.**

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Shepard opened her eyes and let the blue glow from the empty fish tank in her quarters wash over her. The room slowly came into focus and she realised she was lying in bed, uncovered and cold, after having yet another nightmare. Her blankets and pillows were strewn all over the floor and she felt sick to her stomach, but at least she was awake now, back safe and sound on the Normandy and no longer imagining that she was running through miles of burning fields on Mindoir.

She waited for her limbs to stop shaking and then jumped out of the bed, steadying herself by pushing one of her arms up against the wall. Since things had become so confused between her and Garrus, she'd been having nightmares whenever she tried to sleep. It was becoming more than a little unsettling.

After trying to force a few calming breaths into her lungs, Shepard straightened up and then slowly walked over to the nearest control panel so she could turn up the lights in her cabin as bright as they would go. Her eyes stung, but she ignored the sharp pain and started making her bed, returning each and every pillow to its correct place. That made her feel slightly better. She pulled the blankets back over the bed as well, smoothing them down with her hands, and then stepped back so she could admire her handiwork.

Unfortunately once everything was tidy again, Shepard didn't quite know what to do with herself anymore. Although she'd gotten used to not sleeping through the night lately, it was unusual for her to wake up quite this early. There were still hours to go before her shift would start and even though the orange glow of her alarm clock told her it was 3am, she didn't feel at all like going back to bed. She walked around in a circle as she tried to make more sense of her own thoughts, but in the end she just gave up and slumped down into the closest available chair.

From that position, she could see right across the room and the view did nothing to cheer her up. Her quarters were so empty looking, almost completely devoid of any personal touches like ornaments, paintings or plants, despite her living out of them for months now. On her desk, instead of photos of loved ones or even friends and acquaintances to smile out at her, sat only her charred and broken N7 helmet. She'd recovered it months before at the crash site of the original Normandy, picking it up from where it had been laying in the rubble and ash for two years after she...well after she had died.

Shepard grimaced, it was probably best not to think about that too much right now, or ever.

A sudden desire to move came over her and she gave into it, striding away from her bed and up towards her hamster's cage at the other end of the loft. She'd once read in some awful self-help book that holding an animal was supposed to have a comforting effect on humans and, well, it was worth a try. As she got closer to the cage, she saw that the hamster, which she hadn't bothered to name yet, was sitting beside his wheel and nibbling on a carrot, but when she tried to reach for him, he darted towards the safety of his nest.

Shepard immediately abandoned her attempt to pick him up; it wasn't worth the effort. Originally, she'd had fish as well as the bloody hamster and she really missed them right at that moment. It had been so calming to watch them swimming about under the glass, seemingly oblivious to everything on the outside, even to her. Sadly though, she'd eventually started to forget to feed them for days at a time. After a particularly annoying mission killing husks, she'd returned to her quarters and found they were all dead, floating aimlessly on the top of the water. She'd never replaced them and the tank had been empty for weeks now.

Feeling restless again, despite how tired she really was, Shepard turned on her heel, away from the cage, and then started pacing around her quarters. She covered the same path over and over again with her feet, until, finally, she saw it: an unopened wine bottle, lying under her sofa. She felt a terrible jolt in her stomach when she realised the significance of what she was looking at.

It was the bottle of wine Garrus had brought with him when he'd come up to her quarters before they hit the collector base. Shepard had thought it was such a sweet gesture, but she'd decided that the little time they had left before throwing themselves into hell for the good of the galaxy, as he had once so eloquently put it, was best spent on pursuits other than drinking. She'd taken the wine out of his hands, set it to one side and it had been quickly forgotten by the both of them. Now she was staring right at it again, a week later.

Shepard stood still for a moment, before walking over to the bottle and picking it up. She rotated it in her hands, examining its smooth design as the liquid swirled within the confines of the glass. She ran her hands across the surface of the bottle one last time, caressing it gently, and then flung it to the floor so she could watch it smash and splinter.

Now she had to get out of the room for a few minutes, if she didn't, she was afraid she might break down. She'd leave, get some air and then come back completely calm again and clean up the mess she'd just made.

She got as far as the hall before realising that she was only wearing an old t-shirt and her underwear. If she hadn't been sure she was losing it before, then she was now. She didn't even want to think what would have happened if someone like Jack or Joker had come across her in that state.

She ran back down to her sleeping area and pulled on some shorts, along with a pair of flat shoes. Figuring she could just about pass as decently dressed, she clambered into the elevator and decided to head up to the mess hall to get something to eat. Preferably something terribly indulgent and fattening.

* * *

Deck three seemed to be deserted; only the Normandy's usual quiet hum was there to greet Shepard as she stepped out of the elevator and started to move through the empty corridor. Her footsteps echoed off the walls until she reached the kitchen area and began to rummage through the through all the cupboards, the fridge and the freezer.

She turned around a couple of minutes later, arms completely laden with food, top hitched up around her waist, and came face to face with Garrus. She almost dropped everything when she saw him.

He was sitting at the table in the mess hall, surrounded by parts from his sniper rifle, with his gloves off. She'd only seen his bare hands like this once before. Her face immediately turned red at the memory.

"Hey, Shepard," Garrus said, doing a good impression of nonchalance, although Shepard noticed he didn't quite manage to stop his mandibles from flaring when he saw how little she was wearing.

"Hey, yourself," she replied and then almost dropped the food again as Garrus gestured for her to join him.

Shepard realised she now had two very simple options to choose from. Either she could run away or she could try to have a normal conversation with him, like he clearly wanted her to do. Given the mood she was in, the first option was far, far more attractive to her, but she didn't want to hurt him. She'd already developed a terrible habit of doing that lately. Besides, they were still supposed to be good friends, right?

She shuffled over to Garrus, still carrying enough food to feed several people, and sat down opposite him. He quirked a brow ridge as she dropped her hoard onto the table and some of it ended up falling on top of his rifle parts.

"Sorry," she said as she tried to separate their things.

"Don't worry about it," he said, "I guess you must be a little hungry then, Shepard?"

"Yeah, more than a little though."

To illustrate her point, and give herself a great excuse not to talk for a while, she opened a container of chocolate ice cream and began to dig a spoon into it. She hoped they could maybe sit in silence for a few minutes while she got used to just being around him again. Before they'd gone through the relay, she'd spent a little time during most evenings hanging about wherever he was, but things were very different now.

Unfortunately, it didn't take long for Garrus to speak again.

"What's that?" he asked, poking one of his talons towards the container.

"Chocolate ice cream, Garrus," Shepard replied when her mouth was empty. "I picked some up the last time we were on the Citadel and hid it in the freezer as my own private stash. It's not exactly a delicacy though; you must have seen humans eat it before."

"Yeah, but I didn't know what it was called. It looks slimy." He seemed determined to keep the conversation going, although his eye contact with her wasn't great.

"I guess it is a little, but its tastes nice," Shepard said, "Although with that whole dextro-levo thing you probably shouldn't try it yourself. Do you want something else to eat? I could bring it over to you since you're a little surrounded by all those rifle parts."

"No, I'm okay. Thanks, though."

Shepard noticed Garrus was still looking at her ice cream, rather than directly at her. He stared at it for a few seconds and then poked an outstretched talon right into the centre of it.

"Cold," he mumbled, rubbing it between two of his talons.

Despite everything, Shepard couldn't stop herself from smiling at him. "Garrus, I can't believe you just stuck your hand in my food, even Jack has enough manners to know that's not a very polite thing to do. You must be seriously bored."

"I guess I am a bit. I've just been doing some gun maintenance."

"Yeah, I can see that. Is it sanitary to have all those parts spread out on the table everyone eats off? Although judging my how you just stuck your talon into my ice cream, I guess that hygiene's not your main concern tonight."

Garrus chuckled and looked warmly across the table at her. Shepard tried to ignore the little flutter in her stomach when their eyes finally met. "I'll wipe the table down when I'm finished if it'll make you feel better," he said. "Did you sit down just to lecture me? I forgot how much you enjoy doing that, you get this determined glint in your eyes."

"Very funny," Shepard replied, and then thought about what he'd just said. "I don't really get a glint in my eye, do I?"

"A little bit. It's kind of intimidating."

"Who'd have thought a little human like me could scare a big, bad turian vigilante."

"I did see you headbutt that krogan on Tuchanka. I knew then never to piss you off."

Shepard laughed and found herself with another smile on her face. Fair enough, they couldn't have been talking for more than a couple of minutes, but this wasn't so bad anymore. Neither of them was acting particularly tense and she wasn't fantasising about leaving or about anything else that she definitely shouldn't be thinking about. Well, not too much anyway. She was starting to almost feel glad that she'd run into him down here.

She smiled at him again and dropped her spoon on top of the ice cream. "So how come you're still awake at this ungodly hour, Garrus?" she asked, "Shouldn't you be getting your beauty sleep? The Normandy needs you at your best."

Garrus looked confused. "Uh...what's beauty sleep?"

"I don't know how to explain it properly; it's just a silly human phrase, I was teasing you." She leant forward across the table so she was a little closer to him. "Seriously though, how come you're not asleep? Apart from the night shift workers, it looks like we're the only ones who are still up."

"I guess I developed bad habits while I was on Omega."

Shepard raised an eyebrow. "Bad habits?"

"Yeah," he replied. "Strangely enough, you don't tend to sleep so well thinking that heavily armed mercenaries could come in at any moment and spray you with bullets. I got used to just grabbing a couple of hours of rest at a time and always being ready for a fight." He shrugged. "Now I probably couldn't sleep through the night if I tried."

As he finished speaking, Shepard noticed he was looking at the bags under her eyes. "You know I could ask you the same thing, Commander. You seem tired. Don't you usually turn in before midnight?"

His question made Shepard feel a little uneasy, even though he'd just admitted to having trouble sleeping himself, and she found herself staring down at her hands, wondering if she should tell him the truth or make something up. She looked back up at his face and made her decision. "I was asleep, but I had a nightmare and it spooked me way more than it should have done. I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep. Nothing more to it than that."

"A nightmare?" he said straight away, "Was it like one of those Prothean visions from the beacon?" He sounded concerned and she was almost ashamed when she realised how good that made her feel.

"No, no, nothing like that, Garrus," Shepard said. She hesitated for a second, but, much to her own surprise continued to speak, "It was about Mindoir, where I grew up. I know we've never exactly talked about this together before, but I suppose you've probably heard about what happened there. Or maybe you haven't, I don't know. I try not to think about it too much now, but when I was sixteen years old the colony was raided by batarian slavers. My...my family died. My friends too. All of them. By the end of the day all I had left was the dress I was wearing and it was covered in ash." She let out a harsh, dry laugh. "I don't know why I survived but I did. The whole thing was awful. We were just farmers, we didn't have anything worth taking. I was back there in my dream, running, and...and..."

Shepard stopped talking as her brain finally seemed to catch up with her mouth. What the hell had possessed her to just come out with all of that? She didn't talk about Mindoir with anyone, ever, it was her own golden rule and she'd broken it for no good reason. God, the sleep deprivation was really doing a number on her now. She could even feel a few tears gathering in the corner of her eyes_, _but this was all wrong and she had to regain control_. _

She swiped angrily at her eyes and slapped her hand down on the table so hard that her palm stung. "I shouldn't bore you with this nonsense."

"Shepard it's okay. You can tell me anything, I like listening to you talk. I'm always here if you need me." Garrus moved as if he was going to reach across the table and grab her hand, but instead he ended up awkwardly picking up one of the furthest away rifle parts and twirling it in his talons.

Shepard broke the growing silence, "Thanks for saying that but I really should just go up to my quarters and get back into bed. I don't think the Normandy should have a sleep-deprived captain at the wheel."

Even as she said the words, she knew she was lying to him. She had no real intention of trying to get more sleep. Still, she rose out of her chair and started gathering all of the food in her arms again.

"Well okay, I guess you know where to find me if you change your mind," he said, staring up at her.

"I do."

"You're completely sure you're alright?"

Shepard looked at the food in her hands, rather than at him. "Yes, completely sure."

"I won't hold you back then," he said, although he didn't sound convinced. "Don't forget about agreeing to take me on the next mission. It's been far too long since we've blown up something together. It should cheer both of us up, right?"

"Yeah, I'm sure it will. Goodnight, Garrus," she said, her voice becoming softer when her lips formed his name,

She then started to walk, laden with food, towards the elevator, but she looked back before turning the corner. Garrus was bent over the parts again. A feeling of aching longing unlike anything she'd ever felt before tore through her as she watched him work and, God, it hurt. She still wanted him so badly; there was no way that she could pretend otherwise right at that moment.

All she had to do was ask and she knew he would probably come up to her quarters and provide her with all the comfort she needed, maybe without even questioning the insane way she'd been behaving towards him lately. She could feel what it was like to have his weight pressing her down against the bed again. But then morning would come, he'd still be there with her and she wouldn't know what to do.

Shepard turned away from him. Nothing had changed. She headed back towards her quarters, her pace slow as she resigned herself to spending the next few hours alone.

On the bright side, which in all honestly didn't seem any brighter to her than a crack of dull light, at least she had food now. As sad as it was, eating always did seem to make her feel a little better when she was down. So did reading. Maybe she would sit back and try to relax with a good book once all the food was finally gone. The idea of disappearing from her own life into a fantasy world for a couple of hours was more than a little appealing to her.

Years ago on Mindoir, she'd owned a huge collection of properly bound books, but she'd had to leave them all behind. She missed the smell of the pages. Reading off a data pad was okay but it never felt quite the same. Her favourite novel, Wuthering Heights, looked somehow strange to her when it was written out in digital letters. Even so, she still returned to it time and time again. Not tonight though. She had no desire to read about a doomed love affair in the state she'd gotten herself into; she might end up hurling herself out of an airlock.

There was always that unopened copy of Fornax she'd tucked away somewhere in her quarters. She was still trying to work out exactly what had possessed her to buy that on Omega, although, come to think of it, she did remember that Garrus had been standing about ten feet away from her when she'd picked it up. God only knows what thoughts about him had already been forming in the back of her head all those weeks ago.

Maybe it was safest for her to just sit on the sofa and stare into space for a while. Or spend a couple of hours trying to drown herself in the shower.

* * *

As soon as Shepard's shift started the next morning, she heard a familiar ping at her omni-tool and looked down to see that Miranda was requesting an "urgent" meeting with her. Although Shepard considered Miranda to be a valuable member of the team, sometimes even a friend after everything they'd been through together, this was not how she wanted to begin her working day. She'd been planning to go mope in a dark corner for a couple of hours and claim to be supervising the repair work. Now she couldn't.

Shepard wasted a few minutes watching the stars through the window above her bed before giving in and finally leaving her quarters. She tried not to drag her feet too much as she travelled through the ship to Miranda's office, despite her whole body feeling heavy.

When she was passing by the mess hall, however, she couldn't stop herself from pausing to stare at the chair Garrus had been sitting in the night before. She knew it hadn't been particularly nice of her to get up and leave him so suddenly when he'd been trying to help her, but she wasn't sure what she would have ended up saying to him if she'd stayed. He was probably in the main battery right now, tapping away at the console like always. Maybe behind the door he was thinking of her right at that moment, just like she was thinking of him. It was possible.

Shepard rolled her eyes at her own thoughts. She needed to stop acting like a lovesick teenager and get moving again before Miranda had to come looking for her. She did an about turn, away from the mess hall, and then strode directly into the other woman's office.

Miranda was sitting behind her desk when Shepard came in. Depressingly, she looked as beautiful as ever despite it being first thing in the morning when most normal people were still barely functioning. Her hair was shining so much in the overhead lighting that Shepard couldn't help staring at it. She felt an unwelcome pang of jealously, but it immediately disappeared when she realised that Miranda was no longer wearing her Cerberus uniform.

Shepard found herself smiling as she stood in front of her. "You wanted to see me?"

"Yes, Commander," Miranda replied, without stopping to smile back. Instead, she picked up a datapad from her desk and began to read from it. "There are few issues I'd like to talk to you about. Firstly, the repair crews have said that they're running low on some materials and I would advise that we start mining again immediately or the whole repair operation may grind to a halt within a couple of days. The Normandy is far too vulnerable to be left in its current state. I have estimated that just a few direct hits could do serious and potentially permanent damage to the ship."

Shepard had no choice but to listen as Miranda continued to talk with her about the repairs for what felt like hours, although in reality was probably no more than ten minutes. Eventually, much to Shepard's relief, she seemed to run out of steam.

"Thanks for the update," Shepard said, "I'll get onto the mining straight away. There's no real need to worry."

"Thank you, Commander," Miranda replied, but Shepard noticed there was some hesitation in her voice, as if there was more she wanted to say. She didn't look quite so composed as usual either, her mask of steely confidence slipping for a few seconds while she fiddled with the already perfectly arranged papers on her desk.

Shepard thought it was best to just put her out of her misery. "If you want to talk with me about something else, Miranda, then go ahead. I'm always happy to help you. You know that."

Miranda's blue eyes hit Shepard's. "Actually, I was wondering if you were okay."

Shepard definitely hadn't expected her to say that and maybe it showed because Miranda's words started coming out slightly too fast as she continued, "I don't mean to intrude, Commander, but you've seemed very tired lately."

"So people keep saying. You haven't been speaking to Kelly, have you?"

"No." Miranda looked genuinely confused. "We, ah, don't tend to cross paths much."

"Right. Well, anyway, I'm fine. Really."

"Alright." Miranda paused and seemed to think deeply for a few seconds, "Shepard if you, for any reason, decide that you're not okay then I just want you to understand that you can talk to me anytime. I know I'm probably not anyone's first choice as a confidant on this ship, but you've helped me in the past. I'd be more than happy to return the favour."

Shepard actually felt a little touched, this was a real turnout for the books, Miranda didn't usually come across as the caring type unless she was talking about Oriana. However, she also knew that there was no way in hell she was going to take her up on the offer.

"Thanks Miranda," she said eventually, "But I'm still alright."

"I suppose I'll see you later then. Have a nice day, Shepard."

"You too."

When Shepard arrived up on the bridge a few minutes later she was still feeling more than a little confused after her conversation with Miranda. She advanced towards the galaxy map, hoping that mining, though dull as sin, might at least help her to finally clear her head. She'd started to lean forward over the railing when she heard Mordin's voice come from behind her.

"Shepard, would like to speak with you if at all possible."

Shepard turned round to face him and shrugged. Clearly she was not going to get a minute to herself this morning. "Sure why not, go ahead."

"Would prefer to talk in lab."

"Fine," she said, but inwardly she was hoping against hope that he didn't want to have a long conversation with her. She'd had no coffee all morning, her head had started aching in Miranda's office and she just wasn't sure if she was going to able to keep up with him.

With some hesitation, she followed after Mordin as he headed into the lab. As she walked towards him, she noticed that there was a large assortment of beakers on one of his desks, all filled with an amber fluid which looked suspiciously like human urine. At the back of the room, a strange humming noise was emanating from a sealed container. Shepard decided against asking him what he was working on.

"What is it, Mordin?" she asked warily. The last talk she'd had with the good doctor had involved him giving her some 'helpful' medical advice about the risks involved in consummating her relationship with Garrus. With a visible twinkle in his black eyes, he'd warned her about chafing and allergic reactions and then had EDI forward some extremely graphic vids to her quarters. Out of sheer curiosity, she'd put one on at the end of a particularly dull shift. It had been turned off again about fifty seconds later.

She preferred to learn by doing anyway and since Garrus hadn't watched them either when he arrived up in her quarters, she guessed he probably did too. Once they were together, it had all just fallen into place for them anyway. Not that it mattered one little bit now...

"Shepard. Appear distracted. Are you listening?" Mordin said, looking concerned as he waved one hand back and forth across her face.

Shepard pulled her focus back into the room. "Sorry. I was thinking about the hull repairs that still need doing. What were you saying?"

"Want to check you are okay. Sent message yesterday asking you to come see me."

"Oh," Shepard replied as a vague memory of reading his message passed through her mind, "Sorry, I guess I missed it somehow."

"Don't worry. Glad you're here now. Want to discuss your health."

Shepard tensed up, waiting for whatever was coming next. "My health? What exactly do you mean, Mordin?"

"You seem unwell."

"I'm okay," Shepard replied_, _although, truthfully, she was starting to wonder just how strangely she'd been acting over the last few days, given that half the population of the Normandy now seemed to be trying to check up on her. Maybe Legion and Grunt would be offering her advice and a warm shoulder to cry on soon.

Mordin shook his head when he heard her answer. "Seem distracted lately. Appearance suggests lack of sleep. Have bags under eyes, skin is pale. Also appear to be on edge."

"I'm fine. Just peachy"

Mordin took in a deep breath. "Do not believe you. Sorry to be blunt but suspect you may be depressed."

Shepard opened her mouth to reply, but before she could another stream of words was coming out of the salarian's mouth. "If diagnosis can be confirmed with Dr Chakwas, there are many treatments available which could help you. Pills, herbal remedies, meditation. Would personally recommend that you try taking a sedative. Very relaxing. Or you could talk to someone. Could even talk to me if you like."

Shepard might have found the idea of the hyper-active doctor offering to play agony aunt for her a little amusing had the rest of what he'd said not been so deeply unfunny. "I'm perfectly happy," she said firmly. Not telling the truth, yet again, was far easier than making an attempt to sort through all the jumbled up thoughts that were currently floating through her head.

Mordin stared at her. "Still believe something is wrong with you." He stopped talking for about half a second, which for him constituted a long and considered pause. "Do not mean to pry, but the end of your relationship with Gunnery Officer Vakarian seems to be at root of your recent unhappiness. Can be fixed. Biological signs suggest he is still interested in you. Could talk to him perhaps."

Shepard felt like all the blood in her body had rushed to her face. "Mordin, I told you I'm okay!" She knew she was almost shouting now and probably sounded like a petulant ass, but she could not keep having this awful conversation with him_._

Mordin looked at her intently, before he finally spoke again, "Very well. Will let you work. You're sure you wouldn't like a sedative? Even just one? It might help you sleep."

"No thank you, Mordin" Shepard said, "I'll see you later." She turned to leave.

By the time she got to the door, she was already feeling ashamed about losing her temper. It wasn't like her. She made a point of always trying to be nice to people, especially her crew. Of course, some individuals just didn't respond to diplomacy and that's when her guns came out, but she knew that yelling at someone who was only trying to help her was not okay. She felt just like she used to years ago when she fought with her father about curfews and what constituted appropriate clothing. Back then she'd had a terrible habit of putting on nice outfits only to go tearing around outside, climbing trees and scrambling up streams.

As Shepard stepped out of the lab, she noticed that Kelly was looking in her direction. She couldn't help wondering if the Yeoman had been hovering outside the door so she could 'accidentally' overhear her whole conversation with Mordin.

It didn't matter. Although she was grateful that Kelly had got her talking with Garrus again, there was no way in hell she was having another discussion about her mental state today unless she was tied down with a gun pointed to her head. Even then it would have to be a pretty big gun.

Shepard turned her back on Kelly and placed herself directly in front of the galaxy map so she could begin working.

* * *

She'd been mining for four hours in a semi-conscious state and had just started onto a new planet when from somewhere far away she heard EDI say "Anomaly detected."

Immediately Shepard was wide awake, straightening her bent body up as EDI told her they'd stumbled across a signal from some kind of batarian mercenary base.

Her promise to bring Garrus with her on the next mission began to flash through her mind and she tried not to panic...


	3. Memories

**I had far less time to check over this chapter than usual so please forgive any mistakes that have made their way into the final text.**

**A big thanks to anyone who has read this story, put it on alert or favourited it so far, and especially to anyone who has taken to time to write a review. Reviews make me very happy :)**

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* * *

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Almost an hour had gone by since the anomaly had been detected and Shepard was sitting alone in her quarters, dressed in her underwear because she didn't feel much like suiting up yet.

Earlier, when she'd first told Garrus to get ready for the mission over the comm and heard how happy he was, she'd decided for a few moments that bringing him along with her would work out fine. Unfortunately she'd begun to worry again as soon as the conversation had ended and his voice wasn't in her ear anymore. Fair enough, they had been getting along okay together over the last couple of days and there had never been any real drama between them, no screaming matches, hysterical crying or plate throwing, nor would there be in future, but on the Normandy she could always leave if things got too awkward. Being stuck with Garrus on a strange planet for a couple of hours with only one other person and no obvious means of escape was bound to dredge up feelings that were best left exactly where she had tried to bury them.

Shepard looked at the armour that was lying in a heap on the floor in front of her. "EDI, how long is it until I'm supposed to meet Garrus and Kasumi in the hangar?"

"Fifteen minutes," the AI replied immediately, "Would you like me to inform them that you will be late?"

"No, that won't be necessary."

"Understood. Logging you out, Commander."

Shepard looked at the armour again and still didn't move towards it. Instead, she picked up a datapad and started reading the notes that EDI had put together on the mission. The information the AI had laid out was clear enough, the Normandy had detected a couple of heavily encrypted transmissions sent by a batarian mercenary group who seemed to be operating from the planet and her scans had revealed the presence of a base in the middle of a large valley. Some sort of interference was preventing her from providing any solid information on enemy numbers and defences, but she predicted that there would be at least one squadron of well-armed batarians ready to protect the base from attack.

Shepard put the datapad down and turned it off. Thinking too much about fighting through a horde of batarians was not going to do anything to help improve her current mood.

Almost fifteen years had gone by since she had lost her family during the batarian raid on Mindoir, but she knew all too well how much it had screwed her up, even though she liked to pretend to others that it hadn't. It had just been so strange to wake up one morning, thinking everything was okay, and then by the end of the day to have nothing left to call her own except for a ruined dress.

Shepard had tried her best to forget about what had happened, her very best, but she couldn't quite seem to do it.

Her mother had been taken away from her first, killed by the batarians while she was outside their little house, tending to the flowers which grew all around the garden and speckled the grass with spots of bright colour.

Even though Shepard's parents had been farmers who'd worked out in the mud of the fields every day, they had always taken real pride in their home. They'd made it such a nice place for Shepard to grow up in, somewhere that felt safe and warm, and never lonely, despite their closest neighbours living pretty far out on the horizon.

So much time had passed since Shepard's childhood on Mindoir, and yet she could still remember the house so clearly, even the way it used to smell when the breeze blew in from outside, carrying the scent of the flowers and the grass into the hall. Most of her friends had lived in larger houses, but that had never really bothered her because she was happy where she was. Her bedroom had been decorated exactly how she wanted it, with photos of smiling people hung all over the walls and hundreds of books piled up on the floor. After school, Shepard had sometimes lain on her bed for hours, doing nothing except daydreaming, or wasted time lazing about in the living room because she liked the comfy chairs and the wooden table her dad had built on a whim one day. She had rarely ventured into the kitchen, however, as the only food she could seem to prepare without setting something on fire was toast and cereal.

The house may not have been big or fancy, but in a way that had suited her family perfectly. There had been nothing particularly special about any of them, even Shepard had been average back then, and that had been totally okay. They'd just been quiet people who'd got on with things and loved each other fiercely.

In the evenings, when she hadn't been running wild outside, Shepard had liked to sit in the living room with a book and be surrounded by her family's warmth. It hadn't mattered if no one talked. She'd been at peace, where she belonged. She knew they felt the same way. Then the batarians came and it was all gone.

Shepard had been inside when the attack started, rereading some book or other on the sofa. She couldn't remember what the novel had been called now, but she could remember hearing a scream and then glancing away from the page towards the nearby window and watching, horrified, as a bullet struck her mother's head and her lifeless body crumpled to the ground in the sundrenched garden. It had all happened so fast, although it looked like her mother might have been trying to run towards the house to grab one of the guns they'd kept hidden under the stairs to kill any wild animals that threatened their livestock. She just hadn't been fast enough.

Shepard, however, had got to the guns in time. She'd hurtled into the hall, pulled out a pistol from the stash and armed it. Her parents had shown her how to shoot a couple of years before in case any particularly large beasty ever threatened their home. Sometimes they'd even let her practice shooting in the back yard when she was feeling particularly restless, lining up old cans on a wall for her to knock over. Even all those years ago she'd been a crack shot.

Thinking back now, Shepard couldn't remember exactly what she'd intended to do after picking up the gun, but she was fairly sure she would've managed to kill at least one of the batarians before they'd got to her. Maybe even a couple. Left to her own devices she probably never would have made it out of the house alive. She would have stayed fighting and gone down in a blaze of glory. Her father, however, had other ideas. He'd been cooking something in the kitchen, probably a roast from the smell, and had gotten to the guns just seconds after her. Straight away he'd told her to run, to head out the back of the house where it was still safe. He'd follow her of course, but first he had to get her little sister from the cot upstairs.

Shepard had wanted to argue, but she'd known better than to do it when her father looked at her like that, his eyes burning with blue fire. So she'd run, pistol clutched so tightly in her hand that her fingers began to go numb.

It was difficult to estimate exactly, but she guessed now that she'd probably made it about twenty metres down through the fields at the back of the house before she'd heard the sound of more gunshots, then nothing. She'd stopped and turned around, planning to go back and help, but when a batarian had walked out of the back door she'd known it was too late.

The ugly four-eyed bastard had noticed her almost straight away. It hadn't mattered though. Somehow from that distance she'd managed to plug two bullets into him before he'd even raised his gun.

Her first kill at sixteen. Not that she'd had any time to stop and think about what had just happened. She'd had to get out of there, like her father had told her to. She'd started running again and this time hadn't stopped even when all her limbs had begun to burn and it hurt to breathe. There had been awful noises coming from all around her, but she'd done her best to block them out. At one point ash from a nearby explosion had coated her clothes. She'd kept going, she'd had to.

Eventually, after at least an hour of running, when her legs had finally been starting to give out, an Alliance patrol had found her. Maybe she should have been happy to see them, but instead she'd felt nothing. The whole ordeal was over though. The troops had brought her to a shuttle and deposited her inside with a ragtag band of twenty or so other survivors. All of them had worn the same shellshocked expression on their faces and barely acknowledged each other.

When the shuttle had finally taken off, Shepard had edged past everyone else, towards one of the windows, and watched as Mindoir became smaller and smaller until it was nothing more than a pinprick of light burning far in the distance.

Since that day, the colony had been completely rebuilt, but Shepard couldn't bear to go back, not even to attend the memorial service that was held every year to remember the victims of the raid. It was funny to think that as a child she'd been so sure that she would never ever leave Mindoir. She'd planned to stay right there with her family and train to be a teacher. As a teenager, she'd pictured herself helping kids like her little sister learn their times tables and how to read and write. It just wasn't meant to be.

Instead, she'd ended up joining the Alliance as soon as she was old enough because she wanted to stop people from going through what she had. She knew that it wasn't possible to lose everyone you love, their warmth, their energy, and feel normal afterwards.

Even all these years later, Shepard still occasionally found herself looking out of the Normandy's windows and wondering if the souls of her family lived on somewhere else out amongst the stars, somewhere safe. She liked that idea, it was comforting, if not always entirely convincing.

Shepard had seen many people die since Mindoir, but the memory of losing her mother still hurt the most. Even what happened on Akuze had been easier to cope with because by then she was already a soldier. On Mindoir she was a child, a shy sixteen year old who'd never had a proper boyfriend or smoked a cigarette. When she thought back to that old life she sometimes still felt like that girl, not a grown woman who was pushing thirty, had already spent years in the military and was currently supposed to be getting ready for yet another mission.

Shepard lifted her head out of her hands. She was still on the sofa in her quarters, still in her underwear and she still hadn't touched her armour. Dear God, she needed to get a grip.

"EDI, how much longer do I have now before I'm supposed to be in the hangar?" she asked.

"Five minutes, Commander."

"Thank you, that'll be all."

Shepard stood up, picked up her bodysuit and started getting dressed before she could change her mind and sit down again like a useless sack. Thinking about the past for too long was pointless anyway when nothing about it could ever be changed.

Besides, it wasn't like her life had ended up being a disaster; she was Commander of her own ship for crying out loud. Sure it sometimes made her sad that she didn't really have anyone to love anymore but she'd gotten along with things like this for years now and, after all was said and done, it was a far more sensible and safe way to live.

Shepard pulled on the rest of her armour. Before heading out of her quarters, she glanced into the mirror hanging in her bathroom. Everyone was right, she did look awful.

* * *

Shepard made it to the hangar a few minutes later, still pretending to herself that she wasn't in desperate need of someone to comfort her. She stood in the doorway and saw that Garrus was already there, leaning back against a stack of crates with his arms crossed. He seemed to be trying hard to feign relaxation but his mandibles were held tightly to his face.

Armoured and fully equipped with his guns like that, he looked so tall and dangerous and yet Shepard knew with absolute certainty that he would never hurt her. He'd been so gentle when they spent their one night together, holding her in his arms and stroking her hair at first before she'd decided to move things along. It was such a cliché, but underneath all the bitterness and confusion, he really did have a heart of gold.

Shepard started walking towards the shuttle, fighting a mad urge to run up to Garrus, wrap her arms tightly around his armoured torso and never let go.

Close-up, she could see his body was stiff against the crates and she wondered exactly how long he'd been standing there for. Usually she would have found his eagerness to get moving amusing and probably would've gone on to tease him about it, but today it made her feel sad. She couldn't believe how much he still wanted to be around her after the way she'd treated him.

Shepard did her best to flash Garrus a friendly smile as she stopped to stand in front of him. He responded by extending his arm out and giving an awkward hand motion that looked almost like a wave. It was strangely adorable.

She smiled again in spite of herself. "Hi, Garrus. It's good to see you."

"You too, Shepard."

She hesitated. "So...where's Kasumi? I told her to be here five minutes ago."

"I don't know but I guess she'll be here soon," he replied and the conversation ground to a premature halt because apparently neither of them could think of anything else safe to talk about.

Shepard had thought long and hard about who to take with her and Garrus on this mission. In the end she'd chosen Kasumi partly because she could handle herself well out on the field, but mainly because she was a friend who was kind enough to lend her books sometimes. The last thing Shepard needed right now was to be around some of the more difficult characters on the ship. She knew a few minutes alone with Jack or Zaaed would probably finish off her slow descent into insanity. She liked helping her crew but sometimes it got exhausting.

Over the last few months, Garrus and Kasumi had been at her side almost constantly anyway. In dramatic fashion, they'd even taken on hundreds of mercenaries, vorcha, krogans and collectors, along with one huge human reaper, and still lived to tell the tale. By now they could spend hours together and still get along. Shepard figured Kasumi would easily be able to break up any tension that started to develop between her and Garrus, it was just a bloody pity she wasn't in the hangar yet.

Shepard snapped her hands behind her back and stood in what she hoped was her most Commander-like pose in front of Garrus. "So is there anything you need to know about the mission?" she asked.

"Not really. I think we're all set to go. The pilot and co-pilot are already in the shuttle."

"Good, that's good."

"Are you sure _you're _okay with this mission?" His mandibles flared out as he spoke.

"Yeah of course," she replied, perhaps a little too quickly, she wasn't sure. "The intel we have may be a little limited, but we have enough information to know they're up to no good down there and taking on the base should be no more difficult than anything else we've had to do over the last year."

"That's, ah, not really what I meant." He moved towards her. "After what we talked about last night, I thought maybe this mission might bother you for, you know, personal reasons."

"I'm fine with the mission. They're mercenaries and they're batarians, sure, but they might not have anything to do with slaving. And even if it turns out they do, it doesn't matter. At all," she said, a lot more loudly than she strictly needed to. There was no way she could tell him about the ten minutes she'd just spent collapsed on her sofa in her underwear, having a mini breakdown.

"Are you sure that's how you really feel? You're shaking a little."

He started to reach out towards her, but much to Shepard's relief, Kasumi choose that exact moment to enter the hangar. Garrus backed away.

Kasumi was smirking under the shadow of her hood as she approached them. "I'm not interrupting anything am I? I could come back again in a few minutes if you like?"

"That really won't be necessary," Shepard said.

"Okay, if you're sure." Kasumi continued to smirk. "It's nice to see the two of you have kissed and made up."

Shepard shut her eyes. How the hell had she managed to forget that Kasumi was the biggest gossip on the entire ship? Her head was such a mess right now. She took a calming breath and opened her eyes again. "We're friends, just like always."

"Ah, that's good," Kasumi said, sounding slightly confused for a moment, but she recovered quickly, "It's nice to have the old team back together anyway. Miranda's a bit too high maintenance for my tastes; she must spend hours on her hair every morning. Hoods make everything easier, all I have to do is apply some lipstick and I'm ready to get going." She paused to smile at both of them. "It'll be great to fight alongside you again, Garrus. Right, Shepard?"

"Yes, of course it will," she replied.

Garrus shifted awkwardly in his place. He hadn't spoken since Kasumi's entrance and seemed to have become unnaturally fascinated with a few empty crates on the other side of hangar. His sniper rifle was gleaming in the artificial light above their heads and Shepard couldn't help wondering how long he'd spent working on it the previous night.

Biting back her own discomfort, she walked up to him and put her hand briefly on his arm. "I know you both have my back no matter what. Now let's get going."

She walked towards the shuttle and gestured for Kasumi and Garrus to go in first. She knew once she was inside then that was it, she would be trapped for a whole mission fighting batarians with the two of them. They both sat down, but she kept standing just outside until she heard a muffled female voice call, "Come on, Shep, times a wasting."

Shepard tried to think of some good excuse for stalling for a couple more minutes but unable to come up with one had to resign herself to her fate and follow them in.

She'd never noticed quite how small the shuttle was before and even though she ended up putting herself down beside Kasumi rather than Garrus, she felt like she was practically sitting in the turian's lap. She could feel the heat radiating from his body, with their legs two metres apart and their bodies facing each other's. To make matters worse, the seat she was perched on beside Kasumi was hard and unyielding, digging into all the wrong places and making the nerves along her spine tingle. She tried in vain to settle herself in place, but she was no closer to getting comfortable as the doors sealed.

She kept shuffling and fidgeting in her seat even as the shuttle finally lifted off and started descending towards the planet's surface. It wasn't going to be a long journey by any means, but no one was talking and Shepard could feel her discomfort rising. Maybe she should have let Miranda lead the mission instead of her just this once, God knows she would have leapt at the chance with both feet. Of course, unchaperoned it was possible that Miranda would spend more time arguing with her team mates than doing anything else...

Kasumi's voice interrupted her thoughts. "So I haven't seen much of either of you lately. What have you been up to, Shep?"

Shepard sat up straighter in her seat and tried to put together a semi-intelligible answer. "Oh, ah, not much really besides working."

"Did you ever finish Pride and Prejudice?"

Shepard gave Kasumi a rather blank look because she had forgotten all about borrowing that book_. _She didn't have a clue where she'd left it but she sincerely hoped she hadn't dropped it into the main engine or out of an airlock.

"Not yet," she said, "I haven't had much time to read it. Do you want it back?"

"Nah, maybe you'll feel more like reading it soon." Kasumi turned to Garrus. "And how have you been, Garrus?"

"Fine, thanks," he replied. His mandibles were clamped tightly to his face again and he had grabbed the bench he was sitting on with both his hands.

"That's good. You know you're both welcome to come by my quarters any time you like and have a few drinks with me, I can make a mean cocktail when I put my mind to it."

Both Shepard and Garrus murmured a response. A few seconds of dead air followed, but Kasumi battled on, seemingly determined to keep at least one of them talking. "So Garrus, you're the ship's Gunnery Officer, right? That must be quite a responsibility."

"Well I suppose so, but it keeps me busy. I don't like sitting around"

"Interesting," Kasumi said as if he had just told her something truly fascinating. "So what exactly does your day to day work involve? Give me all the details; I've been curious for a while."

Garrus looked bemused by her sudden interest in his work, but answered anyway, only to have her ask another more in-depth question straight away. Shepard watched while Garrus grudgingly started to explain in excruciating detail about algorithms and calibrations. She sat back, suppressing a small smile, as the two of them had one of the most boring conversations she'd ever heard.

"So, Garrus," Kasumi said at the start of another pause, "What did you calibrate on the original Normandy?"

"Well I wasn't in charge of the guns on that ship," he said, politely but with a pained expression on his face that had been getting more and more pronounced after each of Kasumi's questions, " I worked on the Mako vehicle we had whenever I got the chance."

Shepard snorted without meaning to. Both Kasumi and Garrus turned towards her and she realised she was going to have to say something now.

"Sorry," she said, "I just thought that was a bit of understatement."

Garrus looked confused. "What do you mean?"

"What do I mean? Garrus you may as well have been married to the Mako. You never left the bloody thing's side! It didn't matter what time of day it was, you'd be there. I'm surprised I didn't find you sleeping with your arm wrapped around the bonnet."

"Don't you think you're exaggerating?"

"Not really."

"Well maybe if you hadn't been such an awful driver, I wouldn't have had to repair the damn thing after every single mission," Garrus said and then sat back with a smug expression on his face. Shepard could tell he was waiting for her reaction.

She frowned. "I'm a good driver."

"Right, that's why the Mako once ended up suspended in mid-air between two rocks with none of the wheels touching the ground." If it was possible, Garrus now looked even smugger.

"That was a one-off. I was swerving to avoid one of those cow things."

"Sorry Shepard but you're not doing much to convince me. Hell, we all knew there was no point eating before one of those missions, it just ended up on the floor of the Mako."

Shepard crinkled her nose. "Don't be so disgusting."

"Okay, okay," Garrus said. "Kasumi, maybe you can settle this." He turned to face her. "You've been in the Hammerhead with Shepard driving more than once. Is she a good driver?"

"I think it's best for me not to answer that, Garrus. I don't want to be kicked off the ship for insubordination."

Garrus looked at Shepard. "You know that just means you can't drive, right?"

"You're such an ass," Shepard said, but she knew she was smiling.

Kasumi let out a soft laugh and then leant forwards in her seat. "You guys have obviously been through a lot together. I've been wondering for a while, were you close on the first Normandy?"

Shepard knew exactly what Kasumi was trying to do by asking her that, but she still felt trapped by the question. She didn't want to say anything that would either lead Garrus on or hurt his feelings.

"Well, yeah," she replied in the end, "It was always nice to go down to the Mako and chat with him at the end of a long day."

"That's sweet," Kasumi said as she glanced back and forth between the two of them.

Turian or not, Garrus looked very embarrassed. "Shepard talked to everyone on that ship, the same way she does now. She was just being a good Commander."

Shepard caught his eye. "That's not all it was, you know that really, right? You were always the one I felt closest to on the Normandy, Garrus."

Okay, maybe she shouldn't have said that but it was true and she didn't want him to think otherwise. Sure chatting to Wrex, Liara, Tali, Kaidan or Ashley, God rest her soul, had been fine but there had always been something about talking to Garrus that just appealed to her more. A couple of times she'd stood in the shadows and watched him work on the Mako. She wondered now if even back then she'd been harbouring some romantic feelings for him deep down in her subconscious. It had been so easy to reject Kaidan and Liara once they began their awkward attempts to flirt with her and then when Garrus returned to C-sec after Sovereign's defeat she'd kept walking past the Mako and thinking about how lonely it looked sitting by itself.

Shepard couldn't remember dying, didn't particularly want to either, but she knew one of the first people she'd thought of when Cerberus dragged her back into the land of the living had been Garrus.

Finding him on Omega, even though she'd been gone for two long years, had made her feel like she wasn't just groping in the dark anymore. Now there was no one in the whole of creation she trusted more than him.

As she sat in the shuttle still looking into his eyes, Shepard felt a wave of an emotion that she was too scared to name crash through her.

"You know Garrus, I've never thanked you properly for how you've stood by me through all of this, coming with me even though I was with Cerberus, backing me up on Horizon when Kaidan acted like such a colossal ass and fighting by my side every day. I really couldn't do any of it without you anymore. I'm so glad you're still here with me, after Saren the Collectors, all of it. I mean it so...thanks."

She paused awkwardly, remembering two things: firstly that they weren't alone in the shuttle and secondly that she had chosen to dump him only a week ago. This was definitely not a good time to come over all sentimental and soft. She was afraid to see how Garrus had reacted to her little speech so she turned away from him and stared at Kasumi instead. She had to salvage the situation somehow.

"Kasumi," she said, "We've been through a lot together too, so thanks."

"That's nice of you to say Shep, but I think Garrus has done a lot more for you than me, don't you?"

Of course she did and Shepard found herself turning back to Garrus when Kasumi finished speaking. She couldn't read his expression, but she didn't look away from him. "Yes," she said, "Garrus, I..."

An alarm sounded, interrupting her mid-sentence. Shepard immediately jumped to her feet, pulling out muscles all along in her back, and then staggered towards the window. She could see they were nearing the planet's surface and everything looked perfectly normal, but the alarm was still blaring so she opened up her com-link with the pilot, "What's going on?" she asked.

"We were almost ready to land but the shuttle's sensors have detected some projectiles heading our way." Static crackled over the line. "I don't understand where they've come from. I'm going to..."

The line went dead as the shuttle was rocked by a series of small collisions. Shepard felt her legs collapse from under her as the Kodiak shook from side to side in the air for a few seconds and then finally skidded down across the ground...

* * *

**Sorry for the rather melodramatic way this chapter ends! It just made the most sense to divide the story up at this point. **

**I have a bit more work than usual to get through this week but I'm hoping I can still get chapter 4 up next Sunday. Fingers crossed, although, unfortunately, I can't promise anything. **


	4. Lean on me

**I somehow managed to get this written. Hopefully it makes some sense!**

**

* * *

**

Garrus was unconscious. Shepard had dragged his heavy body out of the battered shuttle as soon as she'd been able to force the door open. He'd been out for a good few minutes now and she guessed he must have hit some part of his head on impact. She'd landed pretty hard herself, slamming her back off the floor and denting her armour, yet she could barely feel any pain. Her hands were shaking but she knew that might not have had anything to do with her own injury.

Kasumi was standing somewhere nearby, presumably okay, sorting the medi-gel, rations and other supplies she'd been able to grab from the shuttle. The pilot and co-pilot hadn't been so lucky; the front of the Kodiak had smashed into some trees and they'd both died on impact. Shepard realised couldn't even remember their names but decided she'd have to feel guilty about that later. At the moment the only thing she cared about was getting Garrus to open his eyes. All her focus was centred on the body laid out in front of her. She couldn't see anything but him. Not the smoke coming from the downed shuttle, not even Kasumi, and all she could hear was the rhythmic pounding of her own heartbeat in her ears.

She was no medic, but there was a gash on the softer skin of Garrus' neck which clearly needed attention. Dark blue blood was oozing out of it at an increasingly alarming rate. Usually blue was her favourite colour because she associated it with him. Right now seeing it was scaring the shit out of her.

Shepard propped Garrus up against a rock and knelt down beside him so she could rub medi-gel all over his neck. She made sure the gash sealed completely and then began to check his body for any other signs of injury, only pausing in her actions when she reached the bandage on the right side of his face. She'd never seen what exactly was underneath it and felt bad taking it off while he was unconscious, but her priority had to be making sure that he was alright. Hands still shaking, she pulled the bandage open, revealing the cybernetics that Mordin and Chakwas had laced into his raw skin and plates. There were no fresh injuries. Thank God.

For a few moments, Shepard continued to stare down at his face. His wounds from the gunship were terrible and yet he never ever complained, not to her, not to anyone. She ran her fingers across the ruined tissue once, caressing his cheek gently, before putting the bandage back in its place.

"Garrus," she said firmly, wondering if slapping his face might work like it would on a human. It was probably best not to try in case she made things worse. "Garrus. Garrus. Garrus!"

Just when she was starting to really panic, her mind flashing back to an image of Garrus lying in a pool of his own blood on Omega and then to one of her mother's lifeless body, he opened his eyes. Shepard flung her arms around him, crushing his head against her chest. She let go almost straight away when she realised what she was she was doing and his fringe banged off the ground.

"Ugh. Thanks so much Shepard." He sat up and rubbed his latest injury. "You know I'm starting to wonder just how much more damage my head can take."

"Garrus, thank God you're okay!"

"I've been through much worse than that," he said and then frowned. "Wait, what exactly happened? Weren't we about to land?"

Shepard watched as he looked around. She saw him take in the downed shuttle and the bent and broken trees that were collapsed all around it, before his eyes returned to her face.

"As far as I can tell, the shuttle got hit by so many missiles that its shield started to fail and the pilots had to do an emergency landing," she explained. "Unfortunately, it didn't go so well."

"So we need the Normandy to save our asses?"

"I guess so," she said and then smiled weakly at him. He still looked a little disorientated, but his eyes seemed to be focusing on her face well enough. "You just sit tight there and rest for a minute. I'm going to call the ship right now."

She patted his arm, before turning away from the crash site and opening up her comm. "Normandy? This is Shepard. Do you read me?"

Static crackled over the line, but then to her great relief Joker's voice was in her ear. "Yeah. You okay down there after that landing?"

"Not really," she replied, "Kasumi's alright and I guess I am too, but the shuttle's a complete mess, Garrus is injured and the pilot and co-pilot are both dead." She let out a sigh. "What the hell shot at us, Joker?"

"A couple of missile towers."

"Missile towers? I don't understand. Why didn't EDI detect them before we tried to land?"

"She said something about them being hidden underground and covered in plating, and then a load of techno-babble I couldn't follow. I think she's embarrassed."

"Right. So now what? I think we might need a pick up here."

There was a long pause on the line before Joker finally answered her. "Commander, I have some bad news for you, the Normandy can't come get you unless you disable those towers. It's still too damaged from the collector attack."

"Great." Shepard kicked at the dirt under her feet. "No problem. A starship can't risk fighting those towers, but I can do it, on foot, with a pistol and my biotics."

"Never a dull moment, huh? EDI says that there's probably some central power source for them in the base. You should find the control room and disable them from..." The line went dead.

"Joker?" Shepard banged at her comm. but all she could hear was buzzing and static. "Well this just gets better and better. They must be jamming our communications now." She glared at the trees in front of her. "Of all the planets for the three of us to get stranded on, it had to be one that's crawling with batarians."

"We'll be okay," Garrus said and Shepard turned back round to him.

She looked at his face for a few seconds and then slowly nodded. "But we need to get out of here as soon as possible, before the batarians come to investigate the crash site. We're not exactly in the best shape for a fight." She paused and glanced towards the shuttle. "I think we're just going to have to leave the pilot and co-pilot here for now. I don't want to, but I don't think we have a choice. We'll come back for them once this is over so we can return their bodies to their families."

"I knew the pilot quite well," Kasumi said in a low voice, jerking Shepard's attention temporarily away from Garrus. "His name was Gerard. We talked about his wife and two children on Earth once."

Shepard didn't know what to say back to that. They'd all made it through the battle with the collectors and now, here, on this supposedly routine mission, two people had already lost their lives.

"We'll have to mourn him properly later," she said in the end. It was a completely inadequate response to everything that had just happened, and she knew it. But then death always made her feel uncomfortable, sometimes even when she was the one holding the gun. It all seemed so random. You could be fine one minute then maybe your heart would just give out, or some marauders would come running over the horizon, their teeth bared and their weapons out.

She pulled at her armour. "Let's gather up the supplies we have left and get going." Her eyes drifted back to Garrus. "Are you okay to move?"

"Yeah, definitely," he replied, raising himself up to his feet.

"Where are we heading exactly?" Kasumi asked.

"Higher ground, it'll give us a better view of the base and we can see what we're going up against."

After grabbing the rest of her gear, Shepard started to head away from the crash site. As she continued to stride forward, she tried to ignore the dull ache that was settling in across her back.

* * *

They snaked their way uphill for what could have been miles without coming across any batarians, before finally pausing at the top of a large stone outcrop. From there, they had a panoramic view of the valley below.

Shepard didn't really want to admit it to herself, but the main reason she'd got them all to stop was because she needed a rest and Garrus didn't look so good anymore. Over the last half an hour, she'd noticed that he was turning a strange colour and huffing out some of his breaths.

Shepard leant forwards, wincing at the jolt of pain she felt in her back, and stared down into the valley below. Garrus walked over to stand by her. "What a pleasant view," she said to him, "Beautiful trees, sparkling lakes, glistening waterfalls and one mercenary base with at least four huge defence towers sitting right in the middle."

Garrus smiled at her. "Remind me to take my next vacation here."

"It is rather pretty," Kasumi commented from behind them, "The mercenaries should open a hotel. They could make a killing."

"What do you think they do down there?" Garrus asked.

"I don't know," Shepard replied, "Nothing good anyway. The messages EDI intercepted were a bit garbled, but they all had references to attacking ships and seizing contraband." She sighed. "Whatever they're up to, they won't be doing it for much longer anyway, although I don't think the base is going to be a particular easy target. You could fit a hell of a lot of people in there and we're going to have to wade in and blast through them all."

Garrus looked towards her. "Just like old times."

"Yes, I suppose is it. For once though I'd like to be on the side that's not heavily outnumbered and outgunned, but I guess with my luck that's not going to happen anytime soon."

He chuckled. "We've been through worse than this and we've always come through."

Shepard stepped back. "You're right. So what angle do you want to attack the base from? I figure if we can find some way of avoiding those missile towers then maybe we won't get blown up before we can get inside and shut them off. Although not having access to our comms is going to make coordinating things difficult." She furrowed her brow. "Should we head back down there now?"

She knew she'd let some doubt creep into her voice. Maybe it was the crash landing or the fact that they were all a little worse for wear, but she was beginning to feel quite uneasy.

Garrus looked Shepard up and down for a couple of seconds. "I was thinking, maybe we should hold off for a few hours."

"Why? Aren't you feeling well? I thought you looked a little off."

"I'm just about okay, but it will be getting dark soon." Garrus gestured to the skyline and Shepard realised that the planet's two suns were both creeping their way down towards the tree covered hillsides. "And I know you're injured even though you're pretending you're not. Don't think I haven't noticed the limp."

"It's not that bad."

"No offence, but you look like shit, Shepard."

"Oh gee thanks so much Garrus. You really know how to make a girl feel loved." The words just flew out of her mouth before she'd had time to think them through. She felt her cheeks become red and hot, but she managed to regain her composure quickly enough. "I'm fine."

"No you're not. You're limping and you're exhausted."

"Alright, I'll admit that my back's getting a little sore."

"I know. I can tell by now when you're not okay." His face softened. "Look, all three of us need to get some rest, myself included. It's far more sensible if we attack when it's light anyway. We're in unknown terrain and the base is probably on high alert right now. After all we've been through together, I'd prefer the three of us not to get cut down by a bunch of batarian bastards."

Shepard held her hand up. "Alright, alright, there's no need to say anymore, I agree with you, Garrus. I guess we'll leave the battle for tomorrow and try to find somewhere safe to stop and rest tonight." She turned to Kasumi, who had been silent for a few minutes. "Is that all okay with you?"

She nodded. "Whatever you say, Shep."

"Let's get going again then."

Shepard started walking back into the tree line, but with every step she took the dented part of her armour seemed to dig right into her back. After only covering a few metres of ground, she stumbled and had to clutch at her side for support. As she tried to straighten herself up before anyone noticed, she heard Kasumi's voice come from behind her.

"Shep, you seem a bit unsteady on your feet." She paused. "Maybe you could help her, Garrus?"

An almost overwhelming urge to limp over and strangle Kasumi hit Shepard but Garrus was beside her before she could move.

"Garrus, you don't have to help me," she said, "You're injured yourself and I'll be okay in a minute."

"I saw you almost fall," he replied simply.

He grabbed her arm when she didn't protest anymore. His three taloned hand wrapped around her waist and pulled her towards him so that their sides were resting against each other's. All things considered, Shepard knew it was probably a very bad idea to allow herself to lean on him like this, but there was no energy left in her. She ended up throwing her arm around his shoulder so he was supporting some of her weight and Garrus began to urge her forward as gently as he could.

They kept going like that for some time, with Kasumi getting further and further ahead of them and Shepard increasingly feeling like a horse on reigns. She let out a frustrated noise as she tripped on a rock in the growing darkness and Garrus had to pull her right into him to stop her from falling. There was no gap between their bodies anymore.

He steadied her. "Careful."

An ache coursed through Shepard that she knew had nothing to do with her injury. In this position, it almost felt like he was holding her. "Garrus, I'm okay. Really. I can take a lot of damage."

His only response was to tighten his grip on her. "I know, Shepard, but there's no point in needlessly hurting yourself because you feel like being a stubborn ass."

"So I'm an ass now? You really are being so charming today."

"I try," he said. His voice was low as he looked down at her, and Shepard found herself looking right back up at him and wondering if he was thinking the same thing she was...

"Hey, guys, over here," Kasumi yelled from somewhere in front of them.

Shepard broke off her eye contact with Garrus."What is it?" She tried to disentangle herself from him, but he wouldn't let go. They ended up walking forward together towards the sound of Kasumi's voice.

"I've found a cave we could probably shelter in for a few hours until morning. It's pretty well hidden."

She was standing in front of a small opening in the rock face. It was almost completely covered by some red and green vines which were not all that dissimilar to Earth ivy. Most people would have walked right past the cave without ever noticing it was there.

Since they were now at least fifteen miles from the base, Shepard figured the odds of them being found here by the batarians were definitely not good enough to place a bet on.

"It seems safe enough," Garrus said, finally letting go of Shepard, "Especially compared to some of the places I ended up in on Omega. Spending two hours in a sewer under a residential area was not fun."

Shepard was unable to stop her mind from picturing the scene he was describing. "Thanks for sharing, Garrus. I guess it'll have to do." Truthfully, she was finding it hard to keep going and she knew that Garrus was too. Resting here for the night was definitely better than stumbling about with him in the dark for a few more hours until they both finally keeled over.

She headed into the cave, gesturing for Garrus and Kasumi to follow her. Once they were all inside, she paused for a few seconds to survey their new, rather dank surroundings. Thankfully there was just about enough room for even Garrus to stand upright without hitting his head on the ceiling. The cave floor, although rough and hard looking, was at least dry apart from a couple of small pools of water. It wasn't exactly a five star resort on Illium. Hell, it wasn't even a sleazy hotel on Omega, but it would have to do.

Kasumi pinched her nose almost as soon as they made it across the threshold. "I'm beginning to regret suggesting this: it smells like something died in here."

"Judging by the bones over there something did." Shepard grimaced. "We'll have to avoid that corner."

Garrus came up behind the two humans as they all began to dump their gear unceremoniously on the floor. "We really never do get to go anywhere nice."

Shepard smiled. "I promise once we make it out of here I'll find you an antique shop to fight in, a big one with lots of priceless ornaments."

"Sounds good."

"Yeah."

After smiling at Garrus again, Shepard hobbled towards a raised bit of the cave floor and set herself down on it. She attempted to get comfortable, but gave up once she realised that her back continued to throb no matter what position she was in.

"I guess we just try to relax now," she said flatly.

Kasumi nodded. "Yes, I suppose there's nothing else to do. Maybe we could even play some camping games later." She sounded like she was genuinely enthusiastic about the idea. "Though I think we should light a small fire before we do much else. It's a little chilly in here."

Shepard shrugged. "Fine." It wasn't really that cold in the cave yet, but if Kasumi wanted a fire, then that was fair enough.

The thief looked towards the cave entrance for a few moments, seemingly deep in thought. "I think I should be the one to get the firewood. I can use my cloak if I run into any batarians and the two of you need to rest more than I do anyway. I shouldn't be gone for more than half an hour."

She was already almost outside before either Garrus or Shepard could answer her. Shepard stared at the spot where Kasumi had just been standing as she struggled to understand why she thought it was going to take thirty minutes to gather firewood in a forest.

"Looks like it's just the two of us in here for a little while, Garrus," Shepard said after a long pause, smiling inanely at him because she couldn't think of anything else to say.

"Yeah it does."

They continued to stare at each other until Shepard wrenched her eyes away from him. The pain in her back flared up again as they sat together in silence so she started to run one of her hands up and down her side in an attempt to soothe it.

Garrus ambled over to her. "Maybe you should take a look at your back since we're in here with nothing to do. You don't want the injury to get any worse."

"I guess so," she replied.

She stood up slowly and then walked round to the supplies they dragged up the mountainside with them and picked up a sachet of medi-gel. Sitting herself down again, she ran one of her hands to the seals on her chest plate, but stopped short of opening them when she saw that Garrus was still watching her.

"Could you please not look at me while I do this? I'm going to have to take off the top half of my armour."

"No problem," he said, dutifully turning to face the cave wall. "I'll take in more of our wonderful surroundings while you fix yourself up."

Shepard grimaced in pain as she started to pull at her armour, snapping open the seals until she was left with just her grey bodysuit covering the upper half of her body. Unfortunately that was going to have to come off too. She undid the zip, slipped her arms out of the sleeves and let it fall down to her waist. The bra at least was definitely staying on.

She ran one of her hands around to the sorest area of her back, but the action made her jerk forward. She let out a small cry of pain and Garrus turned round to face her.

"What the hell are you doing? How is that not looking?" she said, dropping the medi-gel and folding her arms across her chest in a pointless attempt to cover herself up.

He walked towards her. "You're hurting yourself. Let me help before you do any permanent damage."

She shook her head. "You know, Garrus, suddenly I'm feeling much better. Maybe I just needed to sit down for a little bit." She tried to get up but she jerked something again and fell forward into his arms.

He set her back down. "I've helped you when you've been injured before, haven't I?"

"Yes...hundreds of times."

"Right and this will just take a minute." He held out one of his hands for the medi-gel and after a couple of seconds Shepard finally passed it to him. He walked behind her. "Now sit still and relax."

Shepard jerked as Garrus' talons came in contact with her bare skin without warning. He was right of course: it was far from being the first time he'd had to patch her up. Given everything that had happened between them recently, however, it didn't seem appropriate anymore. Her cheeks began to burn with embarrassment. She could remember all too clearly pulling her clothes off in front of him and then removing his tunic so her hands and eyes could finally explore his body. Eventually, she'd reached down towards the fastenings on his pants and...

"Your back doesn't look too bad, I don't think you've broken anything at least, although I guess you might have cracked a rib" Garrus said, running his hands across her skin, his mouth close to her ear. "It still looks pretty bruised. Nothing you can't handle though."

Shepard shivered, and not from the cold, as he started to rub the medi-gel directly onto her bare back. He was so gentle as he massaged her sore muscles that, in spite of everything, she felt some of the painful tension begin to leave the area.

"That should be good as new soon enough." He sounded almost proud of himself, but then his tone abruptly changed. "What the hell is that?"

Shepard blinked. She had no idea what he was referring to. "What are you talking about?"

He ran one of his talons to her shoulder. "This."

Shepard's eyes widened. Suddenly she knew exactly what he was pointing at and she was right back to thinking about the single night they'd spent together. Once they had finally made it onto the bed, all their clothes now tangled together on the floor, Garrus had started to playfully nip at her shoulder. At one point he'd ended up biting down too hard on her skin and had drawn blood. He'd apologised of course, and Shepard had told him it didn't matter, that she would just slap some medi-gel on it later. But she never had. God knows why, but even after ending things with him she'd still left the bloody wound alone. It was starting to scar now, ensuring that the night would leave its mark on her.

"I must have forgotten to treat that," she said.

"You 'forgot' to put medi-gel on a clearly visible wound on your shoulder that you would have seen anytime you got changed?"

"Yes." She decided the best course of action here was to stick to her ridiculous cover story.

"Right," he paused, one of his talons still resting on the small mark. "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure." She braced herself for whatever was coming next.

"Are all human women this insane or is it just you?"

"I think I'm probably more unhinged than most of them," she said, with a sad smile on her face that she knew he couldn't see. At least he had decided to joke with her rather than attempt to have a serious discussion.

He removed both his hands from her body, took a few steps away from her and then turned to face the wall again. "That's the best I can do for your back, I guess you better put your armour back on."

Shepard did as he'd suggested, all the while trying to ignore how much she missed the feeling of his warm touch on her skin. She felt almost bereft, though he was still standing a few feet in front of her. She stared at his back. "Thanks for playing nurse, Garrus."

"Sure thing."

"You can turn around again now." She smiled at him as they came face to face. "How's your head?"

"Fine."

"Really fine? Or fine like when we were in that plague zone on Omega and you'd been infected, but maintained that you were okay?"

"The first one."

"Good."

"Yeah."

They kept smiling at each other in an awkward way, but when a series of snapping noises came from outside, they both looked away.

"I think I can hear Kasumi coming back with the firewood," Garrus said.

"She certainly has impeccable timing." Shepard watched Kasumi duck back into the cave with an assortment of branches and twigs in her arms. "Welcome home."

"Thanks," she said brightly, dropping the pile of branches at their feet. "I got the firewood."

"I can see that," Shepard replied.

"Do you think this will light in here okay?"

"No idea. I'm not very good at that sort of thing."

"I'll give it a try, if the two of you want?" Garrus said, "I did some survival training back when I was still in the turian military so I think I know what I'm doing."

Shepard nodded vaguely in his direction and then watched as he gathered up the wood and started prodding at it in the centre of the cave. After a few moments, she realised Kasumi was smiling at her.

"How are you feeling, Shep?" she asked. Even though Shepard couldn't see her eyes under the shadow of her hood, she knew Kasumi was studying her carefully.

"Better," Shepard said, "But hungry."

She didn't feel particularly like talking anymore so she walked away from Kasumi, grabbed some of the ration packets they had salvaged from the shuttle and sat down against the cave wall. She returned to watching Garrus struggling with the fire as she started to eat. Eventually he managed to get a few pieces of the wood smouldering and joined her with a packet of dextro-rations in his hand.

Shepard kept eating. The food barely had any taste but it was filling some of the emptiness inside of her. She was reaching for her fourth packet when she realised Garrus was looking her way.

"What?" she asked.

"Oh, nothing," Garrus said, doing little to hide his laughter.

"Seriously, what is it?"

"You're eating even faster than usual. It's, ah, quite a spectacle."

"Isn't it though?" Kasumi agreed from where she was sitting on the other side of the cave. "It's hard to look away, just like when you're driving past a transport hub accident."

Shepard put her rations down and tried not to give in and smile. "I've explained this to both of you before, I have to eat a lot more than most people. If you used biotics, you'd have to eat just as much as me."

Garrus was still watching her. "If I did, I'd wager more of it would end up in my mouth."

"I'd think of another witty retort, Garrus, but I'd much rather eat." As soon as she finished speaking, Shepard picked up another packet.

* * *

An hour later, Shepard was slumped against the cave wall, cradling her stomach. No one had said anything for a while. Garrus, in particular, seemed to have got lost in his own thoughts, although Shepard occasionally caught him glancing her way. It was making her feel a little strange because she didn't know if he realised he was doing it or not and she couldn't help wondering if he was thinking about her.

"It's getting late," Kasumi said, breaking through the silence.

Shepard turned her head towards the cave entrance and saw only blackness through the vines. "Yeah it is."

"And colder."

"Yep."

Kasumi folded one of the empty ration packets in her hands, set it to one side and then looked back at Shepard. "I've been wondering would you like to play a game of Skyllian Five poker before we all head to bed?"

Shepard stared at Kasumi in confusion. "You have a pack of cards?"

"I salvaged them from the shuttle. I grabbed all the important things first, of course, like the weapons and survival gear. The cards were just sitting there and I thought I may as well save them too. Maybe they were put in so passengers could keep themselves entertained on long journeys."

"Right. How thoughtful of Cerberus," Shepard said and then paused. With the batarians still out there, this hardly seemed like an appropriate time to play a game, but if they didn't play then the three of them would probably end up sitting together in silence. "Well I suppose I'm up for it. What about you, Garrus?"

He looked up from the spot he'd been staring at two inches to the left of one of her feet and seemed to take a second or two to come round. "Yeah sure," he said eventually.

"Great," Kasumi exclaimed and then gestured for two of them to sit round the fire, which was giving out a pitiful amount of heat, but was now their only source of light. She grabbed the cards and started to shuffle them like a casino dealer. Shepard could see Garrus watching Kasumi's hands as he dropped himself down beside her so that they were almost, but not quite, touching.

"No hiding anything up your sleeves Kasumi," he said, sending a small smile in Shepard's direction.

Grinning, Kasumi responded to his comment by doing a series of increasingly complicated card tricks. "I wouldn't dream of it, Garrus. I only rob rich philanderers, maybe the occasional museum, but definitely not turian vigilantes and galaxy saving spectres."

Garrus tapped his visor in response. "Good because I have a pretty sharp eye for cheating."

"This is really bringing out the ex-cop in you, huh, Garrus?" An evil grin spread across her face. "I've been wondering for a while now, does he still have the handcuffs, Shep?"

Shepard put her head in her hands so she couldn't see Garrus' reaction to what Kasumi had said. She counted to ten and raised her head up again. "Would you just deal the cards? Please."

"Fine, fine," Kasumi said and then neatly separated them out into three piles without making any more remarks. Shepard thanked God for Kasumi's silence and then grabbed at her cards, welcoming the distraction. At least for a few minutes, all she would have to think about was her next move, instead of the awful mess she'd made of everything.

The three of them started playing, not talking too much as the fire got lower and lower and made their shadows dance across the cave walls. To Shepard's surprise, Kasumi only lasted a few rounds before folding because "luck wasn't with her". Garrus, meanwhile, kept upping the stakes despite looking like he wasn't enjoying himself much.

"How the hell did you get so good at this game?" he asked Shepard, mandibles flaring in what seemed to be irritation.

She shrugged. "I don't know. I've been playing it a bit on the Normandy recently and I guess practice makes perfect."

"Oh." He grabbed at the collar of his armour as if it needed adjusted. "Who exactly have you been playing with?"

Something about his tone worried Shepard so she chose her next words carefully. "Only a couple of people. Donnelly and Daniels from engineering mainly, sometimes Tali joins in when she has the time. It's once a week at most and I don't think we've met up in over a month now."

"How come you never invited me?"

"I don't know," she said because she really didn't. Maybe it would have felt too much like they were a couple if she had invited him along. Planning to relieve stress together was hardly the same as being in that kind of relationship, after all. Perhaps there was some other reason. "I guess I thought you would be too busy for something like that. It didn't seem like your thing and you were always working on your calibrations."

"But you never once bothered asking."

"I'm sorry."

"Right, fine." He sounded hurt.

"Look Garrus, I really am sorry. I didn't even think you liked this game. Honestly."

"I don't. I like being around you," Garrus said and then clamped his mouth shut. He looked mortified. "That's not what I...I didn't... just forget it." He lowered his head.

Shepard wanted to walk over to him and gently raise his head back up with her hand until their eyes met, but she stopped herself. Instead she gave him a weak, useless smile. "I'll invite you next time, I promise." She smiled again. "It's your move."

"What's the point?" He stayed in his hunched position. "You'll win. I fold"

"Come on, Garrus, you usually like going up against impossible odds. Keep playing." She was trying to tease him, like she always did, but she knew as soon as the sentence had left her mouth that it had been completely the wrong thing to say.

"No thanks."

"Garrus don't be like this."

He didn't answer her. Shepard watched as he slammed his cards down and stood up. He wouldn't look at her.

"Fine then," she said, dropping her own cards all over the floor. "I'm going to get some sleep for a few hours, then we can attack the batarians as soon as the sun comes up. Bright and early. I can't wait." She stalked towards the thin blankets they'd salvaged from the shuttle wreck and grabbed one.

Kasumi stood up. "Guys, it's just a stupid game."

Neither of them answered her. Shepard threw the blanket against the cave wall and started pulling off her armour, hurling the pieces to the ground one by one and not caring where they landed. Body suit still on, she cocooned herself in the blanket and made a show of closing herself from the two of them by shutting her eyes. She tried to ignore the pain she felt as the hard ground dug into her skin.

At some point, both Kasumi and Garrus joined her on the floor. She heard them moving around the cave, taking off armour and pulling out the other blankets. Garrus kept walking around for a lot longer than Kasumi, but in the end he chose to lie down so close to Shepard that when she peeked her eyes open she could make him out pretty clearly in the blackness of their surroundings. She couldn't help whispering goodnight to him and was glad when he said it right back. She supposed it was their own way of apologising to each other for almost fighting earlier. Her conscience felt a bit lighter, but still sleep wouldn't come for her and she was getting colder and colder.

Tossing and turning now, Shepard tried desperately to warm herself up. It wasn't working. Her feet and hands were already so cold that she probably could have stabbed them with a hunting knife and not felt a damn thing. Bloody Kasumi on the other hand had found at least one extra blanket from somewhere and had already fallen asleep. She was softly snoring, curled up like a cat near the fire Garrus had lit.

Shepard tried rolling over again and managed to place her injured back right on top of a jagged rock, she yelped before she could stop herself.

Garrus jerked his head up. "Shepard, are you okay?"

"Yeah. No new injuries anyway," she replied, but she couldn't stop her teeth from chattering.

"Aren't you warm enough?"

"Not really."

"Not really?"

"I'm pretty much freezing and I hate being cold."

"Me too. I still don't think I've ever completely gotten over Noveria."

Shepard let out a quiet laugh, "God, that really was an awful mission. Rachni, Geth and sub-zero temperatures. In fact, it was almost as bad as this one, albeit shorter and with much less walking." She sighed. "I just wish I could sleep now, but I'm so bloody cold and Kasumi seems to have thoughtfully stolen all of the extra blankets."

Garrus started to say something, but then stopped.

"What?" Shepard asked him.

"I was thinking...maybe we could help keep each other warm?" He paused and seemed to realise the possible implications of what he had said. Even in the darkness Shepard saw him shake his head and flare his mandibles out in embarrassment. "I mean, maybe we could share our blankets?"

"Oh I don't know, Garrus. I'm not sure if that would be very sensible."

"But you're shivering," he said, squinting at her in the nearly pitch black cave, "And you need to get some proper sleep if we're going to take on those batarians tomorrow."

"You know you're starting to develop a habit of telling me what to do. I'm supposed to be the Commander remember, although if you want to take over from me and somehow unite the entire galaxy against the reapers then by all means go ahead."

"Stop joking around, Shepard. Your back's injured and I can tall you're exhausted. Somehow adding hypothermia into the mix doesn't seem like the brightest idea you've ever had."

"Okay, you have a point, Garrus, but all things considered, do you seriously think this is a good idea?"

"I don't want you to get sick," he replied and Shepard could hear the worry in his voice. She knew there was no ulterior motive at play, there never would be with someone like him, and she really was freezing. Sleeping beside him couldn't be any worse than having to sit half-naked in front of him earlier had been anyway.

"Alright, I'm coming over," she said.

She wrapped herself up and started shuffling slowly towards him, cursing under her breath as she banged into something along the way. Garrus pulled open his own blanket to let her crawl in beside him, but she hesitated at the last moment. She realised that this was exactly like how they'd fallen asleep together in her quarters only a week before. It had been nice, no more than nice, to curl up beside him while he gently stroked her hair and rested his arm around her waist. So comfortable, like she'd finally found where she was supposed to be, the planet she should gravitate around from now on. Once she'd woken up, however, and saw that he was still lying beside her, the enormity of what they'd just done finally set in. Then the panic started. She'd been falling down, down ever since...

"Shepard," Garrus said, sounding exasperated as she continued to stand above him in the middle of the cave, "You're shivering, come here. Please."

She obeyed. Garrus let her curl into his side and then pulled both blankets around them. He was so warm.

"Would you please relax," he said bringing her a bit closer, "You'll never sleep if you stay this tense."

"I'm trying," she muttered.

"Stop talking. I know how much you love running your mouth off, but you need to sleep." He gently stroked his talons through her hair just once. It felt good. She knew she should stop him, but the cave around her was becoming hazier. Her eyes slowly closed.

"Thank you," she said, although her voice was starting to slur.

"For what?"

"Keeping me warm."

He stroked her hair again and she felt her muscles start to relax. When he gently rested his head against hers a few minutes later, Shepard just surrendered to it and slowly began to drift off to sleep. From far away, she thought she heard her own voice mumble his name out into the darkness.

* * *

**So there you go, this somehow ended up being the longest chapter yet. I think I was trying to see how many clichés I could cram into the one piece of writing :)**


	5. In the cold light of day

**Thanks so much to everyone who's still reading this. It's lovely to see the number of hits go up every week :)**

**I apologise in advance for revealing my Shepard's first name in this update. It's a plot point, but I hope it's not too disconcerting for any of you.**

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* * *

**

Garrus had thrown one of his arms around Shepard by the time she woke up again. As she began to stir, he tightened his hold on her. Hours ago when she'd first lain down on the hard cave floor she'd been so cold and uncomfortable. She wasn't anymore.

Shepard cracked her eyes open. Some light had started to creep back into the cave and she could make out Garrus' face clearly again. He was still asleep and looked peaceful, happy even. As much as he'd tried to show her that he was okay over the last few days, every time Shepard had seen him lately there had been a hint of sadness about him. Now it was gone.

She watched the rise and fall of his chest and the slight flaring of his mandibles as he continued to sleep beside her. He was so brave, so perfect, and he had been hers for a single night. She still remembered what it was like to have her lips pressed against his plates and skin and, God, she missed the feeling terribly.

As she kept lying there curled up with him, mute and unmoving, the desire to touch him again stole into her mind and then wouldn't leave. She tried to think of something other than running her lips and hands over his body, but found that she could not.

Eventually, after ten, maybe even twenty minutes had gone by, she gave in.

Quietly, gently, she raised her face to his and grazed her mouth along his scarred mandible. He didn't seem to feel it, though a rumbling sound came from deep within his chest. Maybe she could kiss him properly just once more. He would never know, but she would have one last good memory of everything that had happened between them. One last thing to savour. She leant upwards, placing her lips firmly against his mouth and didn't pull away again even after she was sure a few seconds had already passed.

A part of her began to scream out that this was a bad idea, that she needed to stop, but she didn't listen and then, suddenly, it was too late. With her lips still pressed on his, Shepard felt Garrus move beside her. Before she could react properly, the arm that he had looped around her waist in his sleep was wrenched away from her body and his hand moved up to her shoulder, pushing her back.

"What the _hell_ are you doing, Shepard?" he asked.

She looked at him with bleary, wide eyes as she struggled to come up with any sort of response which could explain away her behaviour.

"Sorry," she said, somehow forcing the word out of her mouth. "You looked so peaceful, I couldn't help it. I don't know what came over me."

"You don't know?" His face was unreadable.

"No." She felt panic coursing through her. "It was a mistake."

"Of course it was." There was no misinterpreting his angry expression now. "I'm going to get up now and go for a walk. I'll be back in a couple of minutes. _Don't_ follow me."

He wrenched the blankets off the two of them and ignored Shepard's attempts to call him back as cold air swirled around her. She watched as he headed out of the cave without stopping to put his armour back on. He pushed his way through the vines that hung over the cave entrance with so much force that they continued to swing back and forth in the air long after he had left. When they finally stopped moving, Shepard curled into a ball on top of the blankets she had been sharing with Garrus all night and stared off into space.

"Shepard?" Kasumi said from the other side of the cave. Shepard tilted her head towards her. For once, no hood was covering the thief's face and it looked like she was still barely awake. "What happened? Why did Garrus leave?"

"It doesn't matter," Shepard mumbled.

Kasmui's dark brown eyes moved over Shepard's face. "You should go after him," she said simply. She looked so concerned that Shepard could barely stand it.

"He told me not to," Shepard replied. She slowly rose up into a sitting position, bracing herself on her arms, "And you really need to stop interfering. You've been making this mission a hundred times more uncomfortable than it needed to be. I still can't believe you left me alone with him yesterday while you spent half an hour looking for enough wood to light a fire in a _forest_."

"I've been trying to make you see sense."

"Sense? What exactly is that supposed to mean, Kasumi?"

Rather than answering straight away, Kasumi pulled her blankets off her body and got up. She stretched out her arms and legs and then walked towards Shepard, stopping only when she was standing directly in front of her. "Look, Shepard, I know you're in love with Garrus. It's obvious. If you're trying to hide it, then you're doing a truly terrible job."

Her words caught Shepard so off-guard that she couldn't immediately think of anything to say back. She ended up simply staring at Kasumi as she continued to speak, "The two of you fit together. This entire mission, you've been so wrapped up in each other that you've barely noticed me. Do you realise how rare it is to find something good like that in this galaxy? I don't know what went wrong between you and him, but I think you should fix it. You'll regret it otherwise. All you're doing at the moment is hurting yourself."

Shepard finally found her voice again, "Kasumi, I don't understand. Why are you pushing this so hard?"

"Because I had someone I loved and I lost him. Garrus is still here, following you around and cracking jokes."

She was referring to Keiji of course. Shepard had been so focused on herself and Garrus over the last few days that she had forgotten all about Kasumi's dead partner. Her mind flashed back to sitting in the shuttle with Kasumi after the Berkenstein mission, watching the emotion on the thief's face as she tried to decide whether or not to destroy the contents of Keiji's graybox. In the end, Shepard had told Kasumi to keep the box. She'd wondered on more than one occasion since then if that had been some very bad advice on her part because she knew Kasumi now spent most of her evenings alone with a ghost, reliving a past that she could never really get back to.

"I know Garrus is still here with me at the moment," Shepard said, "But it's not that simple."

Kasumi sat down in front of her. "Why?"

"Nothing lasts."

"Shepard, listen to me, losing Keiji was terrible but I'd do it all again, even though I already know how it ends." She looked thoughtful for a moment. "Why did you even bring me on this mission?"

"What do you mean? I always bring you and Garrus with me on missions."

"No. You always bring Garrus, you don't always bring me. You knew that I thought your relationship with him was a good thing, I told you as much on more than one occasion, and yet you still asked me to suit up yesterday."

"I didn't think it through."

"I find that hard to believe." Kasumi paused. "I think you're making this way harder than it has to be, Shep. If you can get past the fact that the two of you aren't the same species, then you can get past this."

Shepard leant her head back against the cave wall and stared at the dark ceiling above their heads. Garrus being a turian had never really been an issue. He was just Garrus to her, the one person who would stick by her no matter what happened, but, even so, she still didn't think she could overcome all the other crap that was holding her back.

"Maybe I'm not as strong as you," she said in the end.

Kasumi put her hand briefly on top of Shepard's. "Look, I'm sorry. You don't have to try and justify yourself to me, but you should explain things to Garrus. If you can't be with him, then make him understand why. I've always found turians hard to read, but even I can tell he's hurting. A lot."

"I know," Shepard said. Her voice was strained. "I want to sort this out, but at this point I don't think it's possible."

"Just go talk to him, Shep. Properly. I'm not going to stop haranguing you until you do."

Shepard knew she meant it. "Alright. I'll go."

She got to her feet and looked down at the spot on the floor where Garrus and had been lying with her minutes before, where they would still be if it wasn't for her stupidity. He'd been so warm, like a hot water bottle, and she wished to God she was back in his arms. The moment had been almost perfect so of course she'd had to ruin it.

"Shepard," Kasumi said, "I wouldn't leave him out there alone for too long if you're serious about fixing things."

"Right." Shepard straightened herself out and grabbed a pistol, tucking it into the waistband of her bodysuit. They may not have seen any batarians yet, but you could never be too careful and Garrus seemed to have left all of his guns behind. Even his sniper rifle was still lying on the floor and that usually never left his side on missions.

She headed towards the narrow cave opening, knowing that she was still being watched closely. As she ducked outside into the first light of dawn, she heard Kasumi call out "Good luck" behind her.

Shepard took in a breath of fresh air and then immediately began to walk as fast as she could. She didn't want to give herself enough time to decide this was a terrible idea and turn around again. Apart from the sound of her own movements and the oddly tuneless birdsongs that were coming from some of the trees, there was only silence. All she had to do was blindly follow the deep footprints that Garrus had left in the mud. He wasn't usually so careless and she couldn't help wondering if deep down he'd been hoping that she would come after him all along.

She should have followed him straight away of course, but she was far too much of a coward to do that. She'd already had days to sort things out with him properly and yet she hadn't even tried to because apparently she preferred to simply wallow in her own misery. Every night over the last week she'd gone to bed fantasising that he was still with her and then woken up long before morning to find he wasn't there. How many hours had she wasted now obsessing about the one time they'd been together? How often had she had to stop herself from keeping her eyes on him for too long, from touching him?

After a few minutes of walking, Shepard found her path blocked by some dense trees. She pushed her way through them, tearing the sleeve of her bodysuit all the way down to the elbow in the process, and finally saw Garrus. He was standing just twenty feet in front of her, surrounded by a circle of trees in the middle of a glade. Twigs were breaking under her feet as she walked towards him, but he stood completely still, facing away from her.

She stopped a few paces from him. He didn't turn round. "Garrus, I'm sorry about what...happened in the cave. Are you okay?"

"Yes." He answered her straight away, but made no other move to acknowledge her presence. He just kept staring at the trees that were growing three feet in front of him.

"Alright then." She took in a breath and tried to make herself ask him if he wanted to talk, but instead all she ended up saying was, "Come back to the cave with me."

Garrus still didn't move; he looked more like a statue to Shepard than a living being with blood pumping through its veins. "Just give me a minute," he said.

"You're angry with me."

"I'm not angry. I'm confused." He kept his tone level, but Shepard noticed that he had balled his hands into fists as he spoke.

She hated to see him like this. Without thinking, she closed the gap between them and ran her hand down his cheek and neck until it was resting just past his collar ridge on his shoulder. She felt Garrus jerk at her touch. He turned round and took in a deep breath. "What is putting your hand on my shoulder supposed to mean, Shepard?"

"Nothing, I...I wanted to make you feel better."

As she pulled her hand away, she realized she had never seen Garrus look so exasperated with her. "This is ridiculous. What do you want from me?"

Shepard balked at the question. She had no answer. "I don't know."

"Well you need to make up your damn mind!" he replied, glaring down at her, his eyes catching the morning light and shining ice-blue.

"Look, let's just go back to our camp and talk about this later." She tried to grab his arm, but he pulled it out of her reach.

"No."

"Garrus, please come with me." He didn't respond. "Please, please don't make me talk about this. Please." Shepard knew she sounded pleading and desperate and ridiculous now, but she didn't care.

She started to walk off in the direction of the cave, but when she realised he wasn't following her, the little energy she had left just seemed to seep out of her being and she half-collapsed, half-sat down on the stump of a dead and decaying tree instead of going any further. Slumped forward, she cradled her head in her hands until she heard footsteps heading in her direction and saw his feet edging towards her.

Garrus stopped about a metre or so in front of her. "We need to sort this out, Shepard. I'm worried about you," he said. She looked up at him, silently watching his face while he spoke. "I knew us being together couldn't last, you have a lot better options than me, but I would like you to explain to me what the hell has been going on with you lately. After everything we've been through together, I think I deserve that much."

Shepard didn't answer him, she was afraid she might end up balling like an idiot if she tried to speak. She wanted so badly to start into some sort of reassuring speech that would explain to him how much he still meant to her, how much she cared about him, but she couldn't do it.

"I've followed you into hell twice now and I'd do it again," Garrus said, "I've trusted your judgment above everything else and let you persuade me not to kill the bastard who betrayed me and got ten good men killed." He paused for a moment and took in a deep breath. "Look, I'm sorry; I didn't mean that the way it sounded. I understand why you stopped me from killing Sidonis and I still count you as my only real friend. I couldn't believe it when you said you wanted to be with me, but you did. Now you go funny every time you talk to me and you're not even acting like your normal self. The last week has been hell for me. Have you changed your mind, do you want something closer to home now? It's okay if you do, just tell me. Talk to me, Shepard!"

She remained silent, but Garrus stayed in front of her with his arms crossed over his chest, waiting for some sort of response.

"I don't know how to explain myself properly," she said in the end. It took a huge effort for her just to keep her voice steady. "But it's not that I want something closer to home. You must have realised by now that I don't care one bit about you being a turian. It's what inside that matters to me and you have such a good heart." She shook her head. "Now please can we shelve this conversation for a little while longer until we're back on the Normandy? Let's not dredge all of this up right now, out here of all places. _Please_."

Garrus looked all but defeated when she finished speaking. "At least tell me what I did wrong." He ran one of his hands across his brow plates. "I should have known something wouldn't go right for me. I screw everything up."

He sounded so tired and flat now that it was starting to remind Shepard of the way he had spoken to her when she had first found him alone in that building on Omega, after having nothing but his sniper rifle and the bodies of his team to keep him company for days. It must have been awful, stuck in there with no way out, knowing that the mercenaries weren't going to stop coming until he was finally dead.

He'd been through so much already and Shepard knew the way she'd used him had done nothing but add to the long list of shit things that had happened to him during the last few months. Now their friendship, which had survived her two year absence, which they had both learnt to depend upon, was becoming cracked and broken because of her careless actions.

She closed her eyes for a couple of seconds before opening them again."Garrus, you didn't do anything wrong," she said softly, "You're the best thing in my life, I think about you all the time, whether I want to or not. It's me, I'm the problem. I can't cope with this."

Garrus looked like he wasn't sure whether to believe her or not, but then he closed the gap between them so his body was sheltering hers, while his shadow fell across her pale face. "Why not? Explain to me."

Shepard turned away from him. She couldn't look at him while she finally spilled her guts. Instead she watched a small brown bird that had landed a few metres away from where she was sitting as it scuttled across the ground. It seemed to be looking for something. Probably food from the way it was pecking at the dirt with its beak.

"I felt strange as soon as I woke up with you, Garrus," she began, "Like we'd gone too far. I don't want to hurt you by saying that, but it's the truth." She sighed. "And then I started to feel even worse when you almost died on the collector base. Do you remember? The platforms started to collapse and we were both falling through the air. I thought I was going to lose you for a couple of seconds and it was horrible. We've almost died so many times since the start of this mission."

"But you caught me and pulled me up. I'm fine. I'm standing right here."

He might have said more, but Shepard was barely listening. She continued on like he hadn't spoken at all, "After we were returned to the Normandy, I still thought I could give being with you a try but then you called me by my first name and I knew I couldn't."

"I don't understand." He sounded completely bemused.

"Teagan, you called me Teagan. No one's called me that for years, not since Mindoir and they're all gone, buried on that fucking planet." She let out a dry sob. "It was so awful. I can't even begin to describe how I felt after losing my family; it's not possible, the words just don't exist. I cried for two whole weeks after they all died and then I just shut it off and got on with things because it seemed like it was easier to do that than to keep trying to deal with the pain."

She paused. "How did you even know my first name? I didn't tell you it. I don't tell anybody it."

"I heard it in a news report after...the first Normandy was destroyed."

"Oh." Her voice was barely audible. "Well, when you called me that, it just made me feel really...odd."

Garrus didn't seem to know how to respond to that straight away. "I'm sorry if I upset you, Shepard," he said after a moment, "But I still don't think I quite understand."

As he finished speaking, the bird Shepard had been watching finally found some food. It picked at a berry on the ground for a couple of seconds before flying up into one of the tallest trees and disappearing behind the branches and leaves.

Shepard watched it go but she still didn't turn to Garrus. Instead, she fixed her eyes upon the dirt on the ground where the bird had been standing moments before. "Garrus, you calling me Teagan made me realise how close we'd got. But even if we do get together properly, you know be boyfriend and girlfriend, mates, or whatever the hell you want to call it, it will probably just end with one of us dying. I can't cope with that. I decided after I lost my family, not to get too attached to anyone and I've always stuck to it. You mean a lot to me, far more than you should, but maybe it should stop here. We need to get some distance from each other, let whatever has built up between us die out again. It'll be better for both of us in the long run, even if it feels awful now."

Garrus had moved closer to her while she was talking and she could feel the heat from his body now. Shepard suddenly realised how cold she'd got sitting on a tree stump out in the middle of nowhere dressed in only a skin tight bodysuit while she poured her bleeding heart out like a fool. The whole situation was ridiculous and yet here they were.

The leaves on the ground at her feet rustled as Garrus knelt down in front of her so their legs were grazing each other's. "So your basic plan is to be alone for the rest of your life?"

"Yes...it's just more sensible and practical."

"And you're still sure that's what you want?"

She wanted to say yes, but what came out of her mouth in the end was actually, "I don't know."

Dear God, why couldn't she seem to get her head straight on any of this? She was starting to feel like her own mind was pulling her in two completely different directions. She finally looked at him. "Garrus, I'm scared."

He leant forward and gently ran a talon down one of her cheeks, before cupping her face in his hands. "Do you think it was easy for me to get into this?"

"No, I don't. Of course it wasn't. I just don't want to lose you. With the kind of lives we lead, what chance do we have of actually surviving long enough to enjoy this?"

"But we're still here after taking on Saren and the collectors. I'm not planning to die now; it would be a bit of a letdown after surviving a rocket to the head."

Shepard's guts wrenched at his last words and she pictured him lying in a pool of his own blood again. She had thought he was dead all those weeks ago on Omega. How could he not be after losing so much blood? But he drew in that one great, shuddering breath and she knew he was still with her. Terribly injured, permanently scarred and yet still alive. At least for a little while longer.

She pulled his hands away from her face and released them. "You shouldn't try to reassure me. We've already lost two men on this stupid mission. I've already died once. You know that, you were at my funeral. I saw a photo of you standing there in the crowd behind my coffin."

"But you got better. You're sitting right here, arguing with me and going red in the face."

"I was...dead for two years."

"You're alive now. So am I."

"Garrus," Shepard said, in a desperate, strained voice, "Garrus, I thought at first that you wouldn't mind me calling this off. It was me that pushed you into all of this. It was all me. This is all my fault."

It really was. Had she not been stupid enough to decide throwing herself at him was somehow a good idea, then she knew they probably could have stayed friends for the rest of their short lives. Garrus would never have made a move on her, she was sure of that, and her feelings could have remained hidden forever. She had gotten awfully good at ignoring her emotions over the years, at least until all of this happened. But she couldn't stop herself from seizing upon the perfect opening he'd given her in the main battery when he was talking about that recon scout. Now she was just losing it. Every single time she was alone with Garrus, her thoughts would immediately stray to places she didn't want them to go and she couldn't seem to pull them back no matter how hard she tried.

Garrus leant his face a little closer to hers. "You made me want something I never thought I could have. It feels right now, doesn't it?"

"Yes, but..." She trailed off because she couldn't think of anything to add on to the end of the sentence that wouldn't sound forced. She wanted to argue and scream at him and keep explaining why they shouldn't be together, but no words formed on her lips and she sat there in silence.

"Don't you want to give this a try?" He looked her right in the eyes as he spoke and, God, it was always so hard for her to think straight when he did that.

"I do, of course I do. I always did deep down, but..."

Garrus interrupted Shepard's attempt to argue back further by wrapping his arms around her. Hard, immovable plates began to press against her soft skin and a part of her welcomed it despite everything. She knew she'd let him get much too close now...

"Nothing bad is going to happen," he said. He was talking directly into her ear and it was sending nice shivers all down her back. "We're unstoppable together, with your biotics and my brilliant sniping skills."

Shepard balled her fists up against his chest in a pathetic attempt to dislodge him. "Now you're just being completely ridiculous. We're good at what we do, Garrus, but we're not that good and neither of us is going to be able to hold out for long against an entire reaper fleet."

"Okay, maybe you're right," he conceded, "But this still makes sense. Too much sense to ignore."

He was refusing to let her go or even to loosen his hold on her and Shepard gave up on her half-hearted attempt to get away from him. If she did somehow manage to wriggle her way out, she knew she'd just end up cold and lonely again. A week spent feeling like that already been more than enough for her.

"Honestly, Garrus," she said, "You should run far, far away from me."

"I'd much rather stay right here."

Her increasingly mutinous heart surged when he said that, but she tried to ignore it. "I'm being serious. I don't deserve you, Garrus. You could do a hell of a lot better than me, maybe even find some nice turian girl who's not unstable and won't spend days ignoring you for no reason and acting like a lunatic. Someone who will treat you right."

"I want you."

"Why? Why on Earth do you want me? You've been through enough already without having to deal with all my personal bullshit. I'm a complete mess."

"I trust you. You've always been there for me." He stroked her cheek. "And I'm okay with you being a mess, I've gotten used to it by now."

She couldn't help smiling. He could probably make her smile right in the middle of a reaper attack.

"Shepard, do you really want this to be over?" Garrus asked, "Look, if you do, then that's fine, we can try to be friends again, although that definitely means you're going to have to stop giving me funny looks and touching me inappropriately. It's up to you; I'm not going to push you into something you can't handle. Do you want to forget what happened between us and start over again?"

"No." She half-expected herself to add more on to the sentence but in the end she just left that one word to hang in the air between them.

"Good," Garrus said simply.

Shepard stayed completely still for a few seconds and then moved to curl her body fully against his, resting her cheek on his hard chest, and shutting her mouth tightly so she couldn't say anything else stupid and somehow ruin the moment. She felt Garrus start to gently nuzzle the top of her head and she let herself go limp in his embrace. She was warm all over now.

"Feel better?" he asked.

Shepard drew away from him a fraction and looked into his eyes. As much as she'd tried to deny it, he was all she'd wanted for weeks now, what she needed even. She didn't think she could keep warring against how she felt about him. Not anymore. Not after everything that had just been said between them. Not now she was already in his arms, held tight, their eyes locked, their bodies touching. It was too hard and she had to finally admit defeat, though it scared the hell out of her.

With a weak, nervous smile on her lips, she leant upwards to plant a small kiss on the left side of his face. "Yes, Garrus, I feel better."

She collapsed limply back against his chest. Part of her arm started to go numb in his hold. She didn't care. Not really. It was a long time before either of them spoke again.

"Shepard," Garrus said eventually, prodding her gently with his talons, "You've barely moved for a couple of minutes. Are you still okay?"

"Yes, I'm fine," she said softly as she raised herself up so she could see his face clearly. "I...I think I'm in love with you, Garrus. I tried to pretend to myself I wasn't for so long, I can't anymore." Her expression became almost pained, but she kept going, "I love you."

The muscles in Garrus' arms stiffened around her while she spoke and then relaxed again. "That's good to hear." He paused to nuzzle her cheek. "And all it took was for us to get stranded together on a planet for you to finally admit it."

"Do you...do you feel the same way, I do?"

Garrus looked down at her. "Yes. I don't think I could put up with you otherwise."

Shepard laughed softly and found herself overcome with a strange mix of emotions, and a little fear, as he pulled her back against him and rested his forehead on hers.

She let out a long breath. She felt like she'd been holding it inside of her for days and now, here, she could finally release it and allow herself to enjoy some happiness. The logical part of her brain knew she would still lose Garrus one day. It was inevitable. But maybe that didn't matter when right at this moment nothing else existed for her apart from the two of them.

Most humans, she realised as she continued to rest her body in his arms, would probably find it hard to understand how she could fall for someone as alien to her as him. If she was being totally honest, it had surprised her a little when she'd first started to realise how much she wanted him. But there was just something about his voice and the way he moved that drew her in and made her barely notice any of the other males on the crew. For months, Kelly had been going on and on about how cute Thane was, and Kasumi seemed to have developed an inexplicable crush on Jacob, but neither of those two did anything for her. Garrus was the one who was always there for her and she knew that she was safe with him. She couldn't remember exactly when her feelings had first started to change towards him. There was no lightning bolt moment. Perhaps she had always been going to end up loving him and fighting it had been as futile as trying to hold back a flood with her bare hands.

Eventually, Shepard felt Garrus begin to loosen his grip on her and she realised she didn't want him to let go. He ran one of his talons across her cheek. "We better head back. Kasumi will be wondering what the hell we're doing."

"I guess so. We've been out here for far too long already."

They pulled completely apart from each other, separate again, and Shepard raised herself back onto her feet. As they stood face to face, she impulsively grabbed Garrus' hand, fitting her five fingers in between his three talons. Even though he probably wasn't used to this human way of showing affection, she felt him grip her hand right back and it stopped her from panicking and letting go.

Garrus looked down at their linked hands. "Shepard, I have to ask, why the hell didn't you just come and talk to me sooner?"

"I'm sorry. I couldn't do it. A part of me wanted to, but I couldn't. I was scared. I thought if I admitted how I felt...then I'd lose you or something. I know that doesn't make any sense, at all, but I don't want to lose you." She screwed her eyes up. "I'm sorry."

"Well you told me how you felt ten minutes ago and I'm still here, breathing and everything."

"Yes...I'm sorry."

"You said that already."

"I mean it."

With their fingers still intertwined, they started to walk slowly back towards the cave. Shepard knew she shouldn't be indulging herself like this by holding his hand, but he didn't seem to mind, or if he did, then he clearly wasn't going to say anything. Given the level of unprofessionalism she'd already demonstrated throughout this entire mission, maybe one more stupid move didn't matter much.

Shepard watched their feet move in tandem over the leaves and twigs on the ground for a little while, before glancing towards the sky. The sun was still creeping its way upwards and she could see a large flock of birds flying high above their heads. They were hard to make out against the bright sunlight as they soared in strange formations through the air.

When the birds started to disappear off into the distance, Shepard suddenly realised that they were almost back at the cave. She looked up at Garrus with her brow slightly furrowed. "It's going to be weird when we get back to the ship."

"It would have been weird anyway, Shepard. The crew definitely know what happened between us. People have been giving me a lot of pitying looks lately. It was putting me off from ever leaving the main battery."

"Oh, God. I'm so sorry."

"Stop apologising every ten seconds. It's alright now," he said quickly.

Shepard couldn't help thinking back to her recent conversations with Miranda, Kelly and Mordin. It was difficult to decide which had been the most embarrassing and uncomfortable; although Mordin repeatedly suggesting she take a sedative had been particularly mortifying.

"If it makes you feel any better," she said, "I had half the crew trying to check up on me and I think Mordin wanted to have me committed."

Garrus chuckled. "Well, Kelly came to see me for a 'friendly chat'. I told her, very politely of course, that I didn't feel much like talking and you arrived up in the main battery half an hour later."

Shepard shook her head. "It's nice to know how willing the rest of the crew is to interfere in our personal lives."

"They were probably just trying to help us out."

"I suppose that's the best way of looking at it. I'm glad they started meddling now anyway." She turned to Garrus. "You are too, right?"

He squeezed her hand. "Yes."

They had reached the cave a moment later. Shepard finally separated herself from Garrus and the two of them stood facing each other just outside the entrance.

"I guess we have to get on with the bloody mission now," she said, glancing towards the dark gap in the rock face.

Garrus nodded. "Yeah. Not that having this deep and meaningful conversation with you wasn't a load of fun."

Shepard smiled at him and reached up to touch the scarred side of his face. "We can talk more later."

Garrus leant into her hand as she caressed the damaged plating on his cheek. After a few seconds, however, she drew away from him and then ducked back through the vines and into the cave. She heard him follow behind her.

As they straightened up, Shepard looked around her, but she couldn't see any sign of Kasumi in the dull light, only the blankets and supplies the three of them had left all over the floor. She was beginning to feel a little uneasy until she heard some movement behind her and turned round to find the thief in the midst of decloaking beside the cave entrance.

"Good," she said, "I thought it was the two of you outside, but you can never be too careful. I was starting to get worried; you were gone for an awfully long time."

"Sorry Kasumi. We were talking, like you suggested." Shepard hoped the slight blush which she suspected was now colouring her face wasn't too noticeable. "I guess I lost track of time."

Kasumi smiled at her and drew up to stand beside Garrus. "That's okay, Shep. I'm just glad you're both alright."

"We are," Shepard replied. After some hesitation, she grabbed Garrus' hand and held it fast for a couple of seconds before letting it go again. She knew Kasumi was probably quick enough on the uptake to get the message without her having to embarrass them all by doing something more obvious.

Garrus coughed. "So what now?"

Shepard stared at the turian and the human in front of her. "The sun's come up again so I guess we head down to the base like we planned yesterday. As long as the two of you feel up to it?"

They nodded, but both looked like they wanted to say something. Shepard held up one of her hands. "Before either of you ask, yes, I feel fine. My back is much better now I've had some rest and as long as you're both okay, then I think we can do this."

* * *

**I know the main plot strand has moved on quite a lot in this chapter, but this is actually the mid-point of the story. They're still stuck on that planet and Shep's still a bit of a basket case so there's plenty left to resolve. I hope you'll stick with me for the rest!**


	6. Downhill

**Thanks for reading! Reviews are very much appreciated as always :)**

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It took Shepard much longer to suit up than it should have done because her armour was still scattered across the cave floor from her ridiculous strop the night before. Even as a teenager she could rarely remember behaving quite that badly, her parents just wouldn't have stood for it from their quiet and polite daughter.

If Garrus had any sense, he would have given up on her ages ago. But he hadn't.

She was so glad that he hadn't.

Shepard glanced in Garrus' direction. He was standing tall near the cave entrance, already dressed in his armour and resting his sniper rifle against his shoulder. Despite the fact they were about to head off into a fight, he looked more relaxed than he had done for days.

Shepard clicked the last pieces of her own armour into place and then stood smiling away to herself for a few seconds until it finally occurred to her that she was still missing her left glove. Her cheeks started to feel hot as she realised she had absolutely no idea where it was. She felt too embarrassed to ask for help looking for it, however, since she knew the only reason she couldn't find it was because she'd decided to behave like a three year old the previous night.

She was just starting to consider getting down on her hands and knees to search for it when she felt a tap on her shoulder. "Looking for this?"

Garrus was standing beside her, holding her glove in his right hand.

Shepard looked up at him. "Maybe...where was it?"

"You managed to throw it at me last night so I put it with the rest of my stuff. It bounced off my head when you were in the middle of getting undressed."

"Oh..." Shepard somehow resisted the urge to bury her face in her hands. "Sorry about that."

"That's okay. I'm just happy you didn't hit me with your chest plate or one of your boots."

"No, they ended up in the pools of water at the back of the cave instead." She smiled at him a little nervously and was relieved when he smiled right back and held the glove out to her.

"Here you go."

"Thanks, Garrus."

Shepard reached out and took it off him like he was offering her a bouquet of flowers rather than her own worn glove. When she pulled it onto her hand, her face softened and she started to think about how much of a sweetheart Garrus could be sometimes. She got lost in her own thoughts of him for a brief moment until she realised Kasumi was smirking at her from the other side of the cave.

"I wish I had a big turian vigilante to look after me," she said once she was sure Shepard had caught her eye. Her grin grew even wider.

"I thought Jacob was more your type, Kasumi," Shepard replied as she readjusted the glove on her hand and then dropped her arms back down to her sides. "I could see if he wants to come to your quarters for a drink sometime if you'd like. You never know, he might be willing to take time out of his busy exercise schedule just for you. I'm sure doing all those stomach crunches can only keep him entertained for so long every evening."

Kasumi opened her mouth to answer Shepard back, but Garrus quickly cut across her. "Do we need to take anything else with us?" he asked, looking pointedly at Shepard rather than Kasumi. He seemed to have decided to completely ignore the conversation the two humans had just been having.

"No, I think we're good, unless Kasumi wants to salvage the cards again so we can play another wonderful round of Skyllian Five before we leave." Shepard walked over to where her weapons were stacked and started to equip them. "I'm not planning to spend another night here anyway, in a few hours we're all going to be back on the Normandy."

Kasumi looked hopeful. "Is that a promise? I don't think I can survive another night on that floor. I've slept more comfortably hidden in the cargo holds of ships."

"It's a promise." Shepard holstered her pistol. "I can't wait to get back to the Normandy. I'm looking forward to having a hot shower and forgetting all about this mission."

"Sounds nice," Kasumi said, "Garrus can scrub your back."

"Kasumi, you've been a good friend to me ever since I picked you up from the Citadel, but now would you please shut the hell up."

"I can try, Shep, but I'm not promising anything."

Shepard shook her head and then took one last look around the cave. She stood still for a moment, glancing at the burnt-out fire and the cards which were still spread out all over the floor from their 'friendly' game of poker the night before. Kasumi's blanket was neatly rolled up in one corner, sitting beside a pile of empty ration packets that she must have gathered up and folded at some point. Where Shepard had been sleeping with Garrus was still in a complete mess.

She couldn't believe now how angry he'd been with her just an hour before and yet she'd somehow ended up telling him that she loved him. And he'd said it back.

Sure, she was still scared, a little terrified even, but she wanted to try being with him. Hell, maybe they would even somehow survive the coming fight with the reapers and go on to build a life together. It was possible. She'd been a pessimist for so many years now; perhaps she could allow herself to be an optimist about this one little thing.

Shepard smiled. The cave was damn ugly and being stuck on this planet with batarians was not her idea of a good time, or anybody else's for that matter. But if they hadn't ended up here then she'd probably still be walking around the Normandy in a daze, pining after Garrus. It was funny to think that it might be possible to find a little bit of comfort in a God forsaken place like this.

"We've got everything we need now," Shepard said, turning back to face Garrus and Kasumi, "So I think we can get moving."

They both indicated their assent and then followed Shepard as she left the relative comfort of the cave behind her and stepped back out into the wilderness. She let the bright sunlight heat her skin for a few seconds before she started to stride forward.

It was time to get off this planet.

* * *

Shepard fell into a comfortable rhythm beside Garrus as they continued to make their way down the mountainside. Kasumi, meanwhile, began to walk so she was always a couple of paces behind the two of them, but never slipped any further back than that.

So far they were covering ground quickly. Right after they'd set off from the cave, they had been lucky enough to stumble upon a trail of footprints and broken twigs which, as far as they could tell, led towards the base. They'd been following it ever since.

Going downhill was much easier than making their way up the mountainside had been the day before anyway. Looking back, Shepard knew she probably wouldn't have made it anywhere near as far as she had done if Garrus hadn't been there to practically drag her over the last couple of miles.

Thankfully, her injured back was barely giving her any trouble now and she was able to keep striding forwards, unsupported, on her own two feet. Despite this, however, Garrus seemed to have decided to keep watching her closely for signs of injury.

"You're not limping anymore," he eventually observed from beside her.

Shepard turned her head towards him. "No, I'm not. My back is so much better since you treated it yesterday. Thank you. I no longer feel like I'm some sort of cripple."

She smiled at him, and it was strange to realise that it didn't matter so much if she let her eyes linger on him anymore. She was allowed to keep looking at him.

"No problem," Garrus replied. "You still look a little tired, though."

"Maybe I am. I, ah, hadn't been sleeping well for a good few days before we came on this mission. Honestly, I can't wait to crawl back into my bed on the Normandy when all of this is over and I bet you can't either." Shepard suddenly felt the need to clear her throat. "I mean you must be looking forward to getting some sleep too. It's been a long mission." She paused awkwardly. "So, anyway...is your head still feeling better?"

"Apart from horrible scarring which was already there, it's feels great."

"Good. I guess I mustn't be as bad a medic as I thought."

Even after she'd finished speaking, Shepard kept looking at Garrus, rather than paying any attention to where she was putting her feet. Seconds later she found herself sprawled out on the ground, filthy and face down in the dirt because she'd walked straight into a ditch.

She pulled herself up into a sitting position and started rubbing her gloved hands across her face to clear off some of the mud that was now stuck to it.

It was obvious as Garrus approached her that he was trying his best not to laugh. "You truly are awe inspiring," he said before lifting her back onto her feet, his hands lingering on her body for longer than was strictly necessary. "Still okay?"

"My pride hurts. Why don't we just forget that happened?"

"Sure thing."

Shepard started to rub at her face again, but Garrus pulled her hands away. "Here let me." He cleaned off some of the worst of the mud and then removed a couple of dead leaves from her hair while Kasumi pretended to be very interested in a bush. "There, good as new."

"What would I do without you, Garrus?" Shepard asked, another smile slowly spreading across her face.

"I don't know. Good thing for you I'm not planning on going anywhere."

Shepard kept smiling at him and found she was able to ignore the little twinge of nervousness she felt in her stomach because of what he'd just said. However, she knew they couldn't keep standing there saying their own version of sweet nothings forever.

A little reluctantly, she turned away from him. "Come on. We best keep moving. The faster we get this over with, the better."

* * *

Shepard wasn't sure exactly how long they'd been following the trail down the mountainside for when they first started to hear voices coming from somewhere nearby_._ They were considerably closer to the base at any rate. Over the last couple of miles, Shepard had noticed the ground was becoming flatter and the trees were thickening, which was bound to mean that they were beginning to reach lower ground.

At first all she could hear was muffled noises, but soon it became possible for her to distinguish two different voices and to make out scraps of what they were saying.

Eventually, as she moved towards the voices, she was able to understand whole sentences.

"I think I heard something!" someone was yelling from what Shepard judged to be about fifty metres in front of their position. "Over there, by that tree."

The speaker had a gruff, low voice that seemed to linger in Shepard's ears for far longer than she wanted it to. He was definitely a batarian.

A couple of seconds later his complaint was answered by another equally unpleasant voice. "Shut up, Marl, and keep moving. Every two minutes you tell me you've heard something, we investigate and there's nothing there apart from a bird or a large insect. Calm down."

"I don't like this. We're out here looking for the survivors from the shuttle crash, but they could be anyone."

"Well two of them are dead already."

Marl grunted. "Yeah, but we don't know how many are still out there, Nallor. They could be anywhere and we're five miles from the base."

"What should we do then, hide in a bush until our shifts over?" Nallor asked.

"Maybe."

"Great plan. Look, Tane from one of the other patrols reported hearing some strange noises a few miles from here. He couldn't find the source, but that still means if there are enemies out there somewhere, then they're probably nowhere near us."

"Noises?_"_

"Yeah. He said it sounded like voices, but it was hard to tell."

Shepard avoided looking at Garrus. She couldn't believe they'd been stupid enough to almost give their position away.

A short period of silence followed Nallor's last comment, but it was soon ended by Marl. "Fuck, I wish I'd never signed up for this job. I hate this planet and I hate humans. I can't wait until the ones we're keeping up at the base at the minute are sold on." He made an angry noise in his throat. "Not that I can understand why the hell anyone would want to buy one of those filthy little humans."

Shepard's grip tightened on her pistol.

They were slavers. _Slavers._

It had been five years, three months and thirteen days, if you counted the time she'd been dead, since Shepard had last come across batarian slavers in the flesh. In 2180, when she was a less-experienced marine, she'd ended up having to fight a group of them on a routine Alliance mission. She'd gotten through the assignment by blindly following orders. Most of her unit knew better than to try to ask her about it afterwards and she'd simply done her best to forget the mission had ever happened. That was how she always dealt with things that made her uncomfortable. Her teammates had known that as well as she did.

But this was a different situation now. She was older. She was the one in charge.

Shepard picked up her pace and gestured for Kasumi and Garrus to do the same. These two batarians at least were shortly going to be very, very dead.

"Have you noticed the smell that comes off them?" Marl asked.

"Not really." Despite replying, Nallor sounded like he was barely listening.

"And the way some of the ones in this group keep crying and whining? It's not as if we haven't been giving them water. Fuck. One of them even grabbed at me yesterday, this small female with big blues eyes. I think she was hoping I'd get her some food."

Shepard's grip on her gun became painful, the hard metal digging into her calloused hands, but she kept moving silently forwards towards her unknowing prey. She would have them in her sights soon enough.

"So, what did you do?" Nallor asked.

"I broke her arm. The bitch shouldn't have touched me. They should all just be glad that they still have their lives."

Adrenaline began to swamp Shepard's body, but she tried to calm herself down, focusing on the thought that Marl or whatever the fuck he was called was soon going to have a lot more wrong with him than a broken arm.

She was so close to the reaching the batarians now. However, the trees were starting to block her progress, their roots and branches seemingly pulling at her and trying to trip her up. Shepard pushed her way through them as quickly as she could without making a hell of a lot of noise. She knew Garrus and Kasumi were somewhere behind her, although she was no longer sure exactly where.

In front of her, Marl was still talking and his voice was becoming clearer. "Sometimes I wish we could just kill them all. I hate their noise, I hate their smell and I hate their demands."

"They're prisoners," Nallor replied, "What do you expect them to do, gather round the centre of their cell singing and dancing?"

"You sound like you feel sorry for them."

"I feel nothing for them." Nallor's voice was completely level as he spoke and Shepard could tell he meant what he said. "They're cattle which we sell on, so it's best to keep them in good condition. That means not breaking their arms for no good reason, you stupid bastard."

"I was teaching it a lesson."

"Sure you were."

Marl snarled. "This talk is slowing us down."

Finally, Shepard had them clearly in her sights. She waited for Garrus and Kasumi to catch up with her and then nodded towards the batarians. It was the end of the line for them.

She saw the batarian called Nallor turn to face Marl. "Stop complaining about every fucking thing you can think of or I swear, I'm going to knock you out and leave you right here. Relax. We're halfway through our patrol. We're making good time."

"Not good enough. We're gonna regret this."

Deciding it was too good an opening to miss, Shepard sprung out at them and said, "You're right about that."

The comical expression of shock on both their faces as they looked at the three guns which were now pointed directly at them made her almost feel sorry for them. Almost. But they were still slavers.

She fired off a few rounds from her pistol and then stood staring at their broken and bleeding bodies on the ground. Two bastards down that wouldn't be hurting any more humans, no one's mother, sister, father or friend. They'd got what they deserved. It was that simple really.

Yet at the same time, she found herself wondering how the batarians had felt when they'd killed her family on Mindoir. Did they feel a strange sort of triumph just like she was experiencing now?

So many colonists must have already been killed by the time the batarians got as far out as Shepard's house, but no warning reached their cabin. Her family had no way of knowing the awful fate that was about to befall batarians had simply appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, and then done what they came to do. Less than five minutes later, Shepard had been the only one of her family still drawing breath.

Perhaps the batarians had bragged about the murders afterwards. Maybe they'd even been proud of killing Shepard's defenceless little sister. Her death meant that one more human would never get to grow up after all.

God knows what she would have done with her life if she'd been given the chance, and yet, in the end, she'd never made it past three. It wasn't fair. She was dead, buried deep in the ground, while the batarians who'd killed her were almost certainly still out there somewhere.

In some of her darkest moments, when she'd been unable to block the call of her memories, Shepard had thought about what she'd do if she ever stumbled across one of them. It worried her that she'd never been able to come up with a definite answer. Lusting after revenge was self-destructive. You only had to look at Zaaed and the twenty years he'd wasted chasing Veto to know that was true. But sometimes Shepard thought she would quite enjoy watching one of her family's murderers collapse to the ground, writhing in pain, while she gave them the punishment they'd more than earned.

"Shepard?"

She turned round to find that Garrus was watching her. "You've been standing there for a while now."

"I was...daydreaming. Sorry."

Garrus blinked a couple of times, but with Kasumi standing a few feet away, she could tell he wasn't sure whether or not to say anything else.

"So...they're slavers," Garrus said in the end, hesitating slightly when it came to pronouncing the last word. "A lot of batarian mercenary groups are."

"Yes." Shepard's face felt tight. "I guess that explains why the transmissions EDI detected were talking about 'contraband'. It's nice to know how highly they value their prisoners."

"Well, they're not going to be running their operation for much longer."

"No, they're not." It was statement of fact. Shepard paused and popped a fresh heat sink in her gun. "Come on, let's go play the hero and take these bastards down. There's no point in standing around here for any longer."

She started to move, but was stopped by Garrus putting his hand on her arm. "Can I talk to you for one second, Shepard?"

She thought about saying no, but he looked worried so she ended up nodding instead.

"You don't mind, do you Kasumi?" Garrus asked.

"Of course not," she replied, "Take as much time as you need."

As Kasumi walked away from where they were standing, Shepard couldn't help wondering just how much the thief knew about her past. She liked Kasumi, a lot, but she wouldn't put it past her to go snooping around in the personal records of every member of the Normandy crew.

She probably knew the names of all the family members Shepard had lost, even though she hadn't mentioned them to anyone for years. It was bound to all be there in the bloody files the Alliance and Cerberus had on her. A permanent reminder of everything she'd been through that would follow her through the rest of her life.

Shepard felt Garrus' touch tighten on her arm and she let him pull her to one side, well out of Kasumi's ear shot.

"Are you still feeling alright?" he asked her.

"Sure." She paused for about twenty seconds as Garrus stared at her with both of his brow ridges raised. "Okay that was a lie. I'm not alright. I feel...odd. You heard what that batarians said and I've seen first-hand what they do to their prisoners. My memories of the raid on Mindoir are blurred, but I still get flashes of the things I saw in my dreams, sometimes even when I'm awake. Some of it was a lot worse than broken arms." She took in deep breath. "We just need to stick together and get to the base as soon as possible. I know we can do this, though."

"Of course we can," he said, and she believed him. Seemingly as an afterthought, he reached out and stroked her cheek. Shepard allowed herself to enjoy the feeling of his touch on her skin for a moment, but then she pulled away and headed back to Kasumi.

"Come on, guys," she called as she started to walk in what she hoped was the right direction to get down to the base, "We've got a five mile trek ahead of us."

"At least it's a good day for a hike," Kasumi mumbled as she started to follow Shepard's lead.

* * *

The sun was beating down hard on them by the time the base was almost in their sights again, but no more batarians had come their way to complicate things. Eventually, Shepard found herself staring down at the missile towers just like she had done the day before. She felt...different now though. No longer so tired and lost. And Garrus was right, they could do this

"So, here's the plan," she said, gesturing for Kasumi and Garrus to come closer. "I can see an entrance that only has one defence tower blocking it and I think we should be able to reach without too much trouble." Shepard pointed towards a sealed door on the left-hand side of the building. "Kasumi, I need you to use your cloak to get close enough to the defence tower to disable it. Garrus and I will follow you down once it's offline. Think you can do it?"

"Absolutely," Kasumi replied, "But it probably won't take long for the tower to repair itself and come back online. We'll need to move quickly."

"That's fine. Garrus, you can cover Kasumi with your sniper rifle if needs be, although I don't think there are any batarians outside of the base at the moment."

Garrus nodded. "No problem, Shepard, although I can't help noticing that this plan has you just standing there while me and Kasumi do all the work."

"I'll be here to provide back-up as well." She paused. "And anyway, Garrus, you're always telling me how much you love that bloody rifle and it seems like this is the perfect opportunity for you to spend some quality time alone with it."

"My relationship with this rifle is purely platonic."

"Of course it is."

"You're just jealous because you're stuck using a pistol and that crappy SMG."

Shepard smiled, but didn't offer him any further retort. They needed to get on with things, save the prisoners and return to the Normandy.

She was already beginning to realise that it was always going to be a bit like this between the two of them. They would be able to have brief happy moments together, but the next battle, the next trial, would always be coming around the corner. Maybe that was okay, though. She'd just have to make sure that she learnt to enjoy the time they did have with each other, rather than ruining it by worrying about what could go wrong, about when she would lose him. It could be years from now. She was long overdue some good luck.

Shepard pulled out her pistol. "Time to get to work."

Kasumi nodded and moved further down the hill, before disappearing in front of Shepard's eyes. No batarians emerged from the base and when Kasumi finally reappeared she was standing beside the defence tower which was now emitting a thin pillar of grey smoke. She gestured for Garrus and Shepard to join her.

"That's our cue," Shepard said and then sprinted down the hill.

It wasn't until she was about twenty feet in front of the entrance to the base that she stopped running. She stood completely still and stared intently at the sealed door, barely noticing the small streams of water which were sparkling in the sunlight all around her. Even Garrus and Kasumi had faded into the background.

Shepard was about to take a step forward when the door suddenly burst open, revealing a group of batarians with their weapons already raised. She stood staring stupidly at them for a brief moment until a bullet whizzed past her head and she had the sense to fling herself behind a large rock for cover.

With both Garrus and Kasumi there to help her, however, it didn't take long for the last of the batarians to fall to the ground. After the short battle was over, Garrus walked up to Shepard with his rifle resting on his shoulder.

"My hero," she said, turning towards him.

"You know you don't have to be so sarcastic, you could just thank me for saving your ass."

"I had that situation well under control."

"Of course you did." He smirked at her. "That's why you stood there for a couple of seconds with your mouth hanging open before you moved or pulled your gun out."

"Just how closely were you watching me? You should have been concentrating on the field,"_ s_he said, although a part of her definitely liked the idea of him trying to play the white knight and protect her. All those stupid romance novels she used to read as a teenager must have gone to her head a little in the end.

"I was just making sure you were safe," he retorted, before hastily adding, "Not that you can't handle yourself of course."

"Nice save, Garrus." She was unable to stop herself from smiling as she spoke. "Thanks for the help."

"It was my pleasure."

"I hate to interrupt the two of you," Kasumi said from a couple of feet away, "But that missile tower won't stay down forever and I'd rather not get blown up. I like this outfit too much to have it ruined by smoke and debris."

Shepard tried not to look too sheepish. She always found joking with Garrus strangely comforting, but now was not the time. "Right, of course. Let's do this."

The three of them walked up to the door, which had resealed itself since the batarians' attack, and then stood together directly in front of it.

"How are you holding up, Shepard?" Garrus asked as he studied her face.

She reached out and squeezed his hand just for a second, hoping that Kasumi wouldn't see. Unlike before in the cave, she meant it as a private gesture between the two of them. "I'll be okay once we get these prisoners the hell off this planet, Garrus. Until then, I'm glad I've got you and Kasumi with me." She raised her weapon. "Let's open the door."

* * *

**(Random note: I've never played through the Mass Effect 'Bring Down the Sky' expansion pack with this** **Shepard. I'm not sure if the batarians in that were even meant to be slavers, but Teagan didn't come across them either way.)**

**I would love to be able to start updating this every week again, but I've got a heavy workload all through January so I can't do it. Instead, I will try to add a new chapter every fortnight. There are only a few chapters left to write anyway and I want to do them properly :)**

**Next update should be on Sunday 16th January.**


	7. Away from here

**I can't believe I'm on Chapter seven already. Thanks so much to all of you have made it this far with me :)**

**Note: I've gone back and edited Chapter 4 and Chapter 5. I rushed editing one of them and the other I wrote while I was very ill the flu so I thought they could do with some cleaning up. All the changes are minor, but Chapter 4 in particular should (hopefully) read a little better now. **

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* * *

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Shepard held her breath as Garrus hacked the door. When it slid open, she peered inside the base almost as if she was afraid of what she might see, but all that greeted her was a small entrance hall with four different exits leading off it. It was a perfectly normal looking room. Nothing about it would have given away the awful use the base was put to on a daily basis.

"Ready?" Garrus asked.

Nodding, Shepard stepped inside.

As she did, she noticed that a strange sterile odour was now hanging in the air around her. For some reason the smell made Shepard think of the hospital she'd been brought to after being rescued from Mindoir. While there, she'd spent most of her time sitting on her standard issue bed, staring off into space. She'd hated the damn place and had desperately wished to be somewhere else.

She was getting a similar feeling now. So far she'd only made it about two metres into the base and she didn't feel much desire to go any further yet.

"It looks so normal in here," she said in a quiet voice, almost as if she was thinking out loud rather than talking to Garrus and Kasumi. "You would never know what goes on. This base could be used for anything. It's so quiet and...empty. Where is everyone?"

Garrus drew up to her side, brushing his arm against hers in a way that may or may not have been deliberate. "I don't know, Shepard. I thought they would have sent a welcoming party to greet us straight away. I'm almost disappointed."

Kasumi shook her head. "I wish you hadn't said that, Garrus." She walked over to stand by Shepard's other side while she spoke. "It's never a good idea to tempt fate. We'll probably be over-run with batarians carrying rocket launchers in minute or two thanks to you."

Garrus looked at her incredulously. "Come on Kasumi, don't be so ridiculous. Next you'll be telling me with should all carry good luck charms in our armour."

"Well, it wouldn't do any harm, would it? Maybe I should buy us all a horseshoe the next time we're on the Citadel."

"What the hell is a horseshoe?"

Despite how uneasy she felt, Shepard couldn't help smiling as Kasumi started doing her best to explain to Garrus what exactly a horse was and why you might want to carry one of its shoes around with you. She was so glad they were both here with her for this. Hearing them joke around made it seem like everything was still perfectly fine.

While they continued to talk, Shepard walked a few more paces forward into the room. Unfortunately, almost as soon as she did, she heard the distant sound of feet clattering against the floor.

She pulled her pistol out. "I think we might get that welcome after all, Garrus. You'll have to say I told you so to him later, Kasumi. Right now get into cover. You both know what to do."

A part of her had been dreading the start of the fight because she was afraid it might dredge up her memories again. In the end, it turned out to be far more like business as usual than she'd expected. The batarians were well-trained but the three of them were better. It really didn't matter if she'd once pictured herself living a much simpler kind of life. This was a normal day for her now. She was a soldier and she was going to get through this mission like she'd got through hundreds of others in the past.

After the first battle was over and done with, they continued to make quick progress through the base. It was just a pity that they also became more and more lost the deeper inside the building they reached. Unfortunately, most of the rooms were so bare that they were almost impossible to tell apart.

Eventually Shepard found herself peering down yet another empty passageway with a fork at the bottom. She was beginning to feel like she was trapped in one of those dreams where you walk down endless pathways, never actually reaching the end of the journey.

"Any chance we're going in circles?" she asked, not entirely sure she was joking.

"Given how long we've been wandering about now, I'd say that's fairly likely," Kasumi replied. "We should have left a trail of breadcrumbs behind us."

"I think you've been reading too many fairy tales, Kasumi. Besides, we don't have any bread." Shepard paused. "Garrus, you don't happen to have any idea of where we are, do you?"

"Not really. But I don't think we've been here before. This hallway is straighter than the others. At least I think it is."

"I'll have to take your word on that." She let out a sigh. "Which way do you think it is to the base's control room?"

"Maybe left at the bottom of this passage?"

Shepard could tell it was a guess but she decided to follow his suggestion anyway because he seemed to be the least lost out of the three of them. At this point, Shepard doubted she would be able to retrace the steps they'd already taken. Her lack of any sense of direction was probably one of the many reasons why most of her crew thought she was a terrible driver. They were wrong of course.

"Left it is then," she said and gestured for Garrus and Kasumi to move forward.

She started to follow them but stopped dead when she saw a large blood stain on the floor. It looked like someone had really taken a beating there at some point and no one had ever bothered to clean it up.

Shepard bent down to touch the red smear with her gloved hand and realised it was dried into the floor so deeply that none of it came off onto her fingers. Humans must have been passing through this base for months now, perhaps even years. The thought disgusted her.

She started to raise herself back up to her feet, but before she could walk away a batarian suddenly threw himself out of a side room in front of her. As distracted as she was, she still had the presence of mind to get into cover before he was able to fire.

He shot off a few rounds anyway, sending bullets flying over her head. "You're dead, you murderous bitch." he spat at her, "Did you really think you could kill so many of my men and then get away with walking about on your own? You stupid fucker. I'm going to rip you to pieces when I get my hands on your soft human flesh."

He couldn't see the turian that was standing behind him with his sniper rifle already raised, but Shepard could. She realised that Garrus must have been keeping her covered ever since she'd wandered away from him.

"That's quite a threat," she said calmly, waiting for Garrus to fire, "But I don't think my boyfriend's going to let you act on it."

The batarian started to shout more abuse at her before he was silenced by a series of gunshots.

Shepard strolled out of cover, ignoring the body on the floor. "Thanks. I suppose I could've hit him with some of my biotics but I thought I might as well give you another excuse to show off. I know how much you love doing that."

Garrus had an odd look on his face as she walked towards him.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"Nothing. You called me your 'boyfriend'." His tone was slightly mocking, but he sounded pleased. "It's not a term turians use much, but I used to hear humans say it a lot when I worked on the Citadel. I know what it means."

"Oh. The word just sort of...slipped out." She really hadn't meant to say it, but then wasn't that what he was to her now? Although a simple label like 'boyfriend' hardly seemed to cover everything he meant to her. "You don't mind, do you? I mean we don't have to label anything. I don't think I even want to do that yet. It's too soon. The last thing I want is to come off like some kind of clingy..."

"Shepard," Garrus said firmly, "Calm the hell down. You can call me whatever you like."

The nervous expression that had been playing across her face faded away. "Thanks Gar-bear."

"Except for that."

She smirked for a moment, but bit back any further retort. She'd save it for later. "Come on, we need to get back to business." She grabbed his arm and pulled him towards Kasumi at the bottom of the corridor. "So let's head left like you suggested."

* * *

A couple more scuffles and wrong turns later, they finally found themselves outside of what appeared to be the control room. At the very least, it was a room which had a lot of consoles, flashing lights and wires in it.

They started to head in through the open doorway, but Shepard gestured for Garrus and Kasumi to stop in their tracks. She could hear the faint sound of heavy breathing and someone's desperate attempts to stifle it coming from the back of the room.

"Who's there?" she called out, "Get out here right now. You don't want me to come over there. Trust me."

A single batarian emerged from behind the consoles. He wasn't armoured like the others, wearing a greasy looking jumpsuit instead. He clearly wasn't a threat. Shepard knew it as soon as she saw the terrified look on his face.

She kept her pistol trained on him anyway. "Who exactly are you?"

"A mechanic, I just keep things running smoothly in here." All four of his eyes were focused on her gun. "Please don't kill me."

"You're not very brave for a batarian are you? Shouldn't you be threatening to maim me right now?"

"I...I have a family. Please."

"So do all those prisoners you've got caged up." So did she until she was sixteen. Shepard didn't lower her gun, not yet. "Out of sheer curiosity, exactly how many humans are you hiding here at the moment?"

"About thirty, but we haven't had them for that long. They were taken from a ship that was transporting people between two colonies less than a week ago. Most of them survived the attack. At least I think they did."

Shepard could barely believe what she was hearing. "Oh, well that makes it all okay then."

If it was possible, the batarian started to look even more panicked. "Look this place is just a processing centre. All we do is keep the prisoners here until they can be sold on. That's it. We're part of a bigger chain. If we didn't do this job, then someone else would." Shepard could tell he was about to say more, but then he saw the expression on her face. "You're going to kill me, aren't you?"

"Well I must admit I'm finding the idea of shooting you quite appealing right now." She stared down at the barrel of her gun and then back at his pathetic, contorted face. "Tell you what, if you help me out, I might consider sparing you. What do you say?"

"What do you want?" He spoke as if he couldn't get the words out of his mouth fast enough.

"First, I need those defence towers, which brought down my shuttle and killed two of my men by the way, to be disabled. Then I need whatever little toy you're using to block our comms to be deactivated. Oh, and I want you to transfer every detail about this little slaving ring you're involved in to our omni-tools. Got it?"

He nodded. "Yes. I'll do it all now."

"No," Shepard said. The batarian looked terrified for a second and she knew he thought she'd changed her mind. "You'll show the turian how to do all of it. I don't trust you."

She nodded towards Garrus and he headed over to the batarian. The whole time they worked, Shepard kept her gun pointed at his ugly, four-eyed head.

After a few minutes, Garrus walked back over to her. "It's done, Shepard."

"Good." She gestured for the batarian to come over to her. "Now I just need to decide what to do with you."

"I did what you asked!" He was panicking again.

"Yes, but I can hardly let you wander about the base willy-nilly now can I?"

Shepard looked around her. Wires were hanging from the ceiling, but there was no guarantee he wouldn't be able to wriggle his way out if she tied him up with them. She smiled when she noticed that there was a small cupboard at the back of the room. It would do nicely as an improvised cell.

She grabbed the batarian by the scruff of the neck and hurled him into it. "One last question before I lock you in: where are the prisoners being kept?"

"An underground bunker. Turn left twice after you leave this room and you'll come to it. It's not easy to miss."

"Thank you for your help. I hope you won't be too offended if I say I sincerely hope I never see you again." She locked the door and then leant some of her weight against it. "If it's possible, I think I'm starting to hate batarians even more than I did before."

"At least we can get back in touch with the Normandy now, Shep," Kasumi said, in an obvious attempt to calm her down.

Shepard pushed herself back off the door and stared at the red light that was now shining on it. She hoped she had made the right decision in sparing the batarian. Her parents had always tried to teach her the value of a life so she guessed that they probably would have done the same thing. Of course, unless someone invented a way of communicating with the dead, there was no real way of finding out anymore.

"Shepard, do you want me to contact the Normandy?" Garrus asked.

She shook her head and walked away from the door. "No, no, that's okay. I'll do it." She pressed her comm. "Joker, please for the love of God, tell me you can hear me."

He answered almost straight away. Unlike the day before, the line was free of any interference. "Loud and clear. It's good to hear your voice again, Commander."

"Yeah, well the feelings more than mutual. In fact, I don't think I've ever appreciated what a truly wonderful voice you have before, Joker."

"So I take it that the three of you haven't been having much fun down there?"

"That would depend on your definition of fun. We've spent most of the last day and a half either walking or fighting, and last night we had to sleep in a cave." She paused. "I would very much like to leave now. I'm pretty sure Garrus and Kasumi feel the same way."

"Are the missile towers down?"

"As of five minutes ago. Does that mean you and EDI are brave enough to come get us now?"

She heard some muffled talking on the other side of the line. "Yeah," Joker said eventually, "But I think you might have hurt EDI's feelings with that last comment."

"Tell her I'm sorry. It's just been very a long mission." She ran a hand through her hair. "I also need you to make contact with the Alliance for me. The batarians running this base were slavers and they've been holding some humans captive. About thirty people will need to be evacuated from this planet once we're finished here." She hesitated. "And one batarian prisoner. He's locked in a cupboard off the main control room at the moment."

"I'm on it, Commander. ETA twenty minutes."

"I can barely wait, Joker. See you then. Shepard out."

After deactivating her comm., Shepard paused for a moment to let the fact that this nightmare was almost over sink slowly in. She turned to Garrus and Kasumi. "In a few more hours, we'll all be back on the Normandy, thousands of miles away from this rock. I can't wait. I'm even starting to miss the taste of Gardner's food."

* * *

The three of them made sure every last batarian had been removed from the base before finally heading into the darkness of the bunker. With Garrus' help, Shepard shifted the heavy hatch covering it open and then clambered down the stairs.

The room she found herself in at the bottom was much duller than the rest of the base. The few overhead lights that the batarians had bothered to install flickered on and off periodically and there were no windows. Despite this, however, Shepard could still make out the lines of cells running down the walls. About half of them were full.

Shepard hadn't given much thought to what the prisoners would look like, but now they were in front of her she was shocked. She'd presumed that she would be rescuing a group of adults, but there were teenagers and children behind the bars as well. She guessed the youngest was about seven.

No matter how old they were, most of the survivors were wearing clothes that seemed to be at least one size too big for them. It made Shepard's stomach lurch when she realised that the batarians mustn't have been feeding them properly. More than a few were also injured. In the gloom, Shepard could see a man with a head wound and a blond woman cradling what looked like a broken arm.

There was one young girl in particular who Shepard couldn't seem to stop glancing at again and again. She looked about sixteen and was wearing a torn dress. Even though she had different skin colour to Shepard, and was shorter and rounder than she had been at that age, she still felt like she was staring at herself after the raid on Mindoir. A lump began to form in her throat and she swallowed to try to rid herself of it.

"Garrus, Kasumi...could you open the cells for me."

As they both followed her orders, the sounds of a ship moving overhead rocked the base. Shepard was a little afraid she might have imagined the noise until Joker's voice came over her comm and told her that the Normandy had landed half a mile from their current position. She had to stop herself from crying out in relief.

By the time she'd finished talking to the pilot, Shepard realised that the cells were already open and both Garrus and Kasumi were standing by waiting for her next move.

Shepard forced herself to walk to the centre of the room. She knew that she had to say something to reassure the newly freed prisoners, she just didn't know what. With the bad state they were in, they would hardly want to hear a long winded speech about how she'd come to rescue them and it was all going to be alright now.

"I'm Commander Shepard of the Normandy," she announced in the end, "I'm a spectre and I'm here to get you all off this planet." She thought it was best to keep things very simple.

There wasn't much of a reaction to what she'd just said other than a few murmurs of what could have been surprise, but then Shepard hadn't really expected more than that. She turned to Kasumi. "Could you lead the group out into the hallway? I'll join you in a moment."

Shepard stared at the cells while they emptied. She couldn't seem to move or speak anymore. When all the prisoners were gone, Garrus came up behind her and put a hand on her shoulder.

"I'm alright," she ground out eventually, "I just needed a moment to...centre myself."

"Those humans will be okay now." Shepard didn't answer him, she wasn't sure if she believed him this time. He paused for a moment and then turned her round to face him. "Are you still going to leave that batarian in the control room to the Alliance? You didn't have to spare him. Most people wouldn't have."

"I know that, Garrus."

"But you haven't changed your mind now, after seeing all of this?"

"No. The Alliance are welcome to him. He's not worth the weight on my conscience. And anyway killing him won't bring my family back. Nothing will. I know you might not agree, but I made my decision already. If you want to talk about it later then fine, we can talk about all night long, not now though."

"I didn't say I disagreed. I just...I don't know. I hate seeing you upset like this."

Garrus stood looking at her silently for a minute and then seemed to come to some sort of decision. He bent down and pulled her up in into his arms so that her feet were dangling a foot off the floor. Shepard made a muffled noise of surprise, but she hugged him back, burying her face against his cowl and wrapping her legs and arms around him. She could feel the heat of his body warming her even though they were separated by two layers of armour. As he simply held her, Shepard's breathing and heart rate gradually returned back to normal. She knew this was where she belonged now.

Garrus ran his talons through her hair. "Don't worry I'm not going to make a habit of manhandling you in the middle of missions. You just looked like you needed a hug."

"I did," she murmured against his neck, "Thank you."

"I'm sorry if what I said made you feel worse."

"No, it didn't. It's just this place. I hate being here."

"Then let's go." He lowered Shepard back down onto her own two feet again. A part of her wanted to stay in his arms forever and never let go of him. It was an utterly stupid impulse, but she felt it anyway.

She tried to comfort herself with the thought that once they were back on the Normandy, they would finally be able to spend some proper time alone together. If they decided to take things slow, then they could just talk or sit in her cabin watching vids for hours. If they didn't, well, there certain advantages to having your own private quarters.

Shepard let Garrus lead her out of the room to join Kasumi and the rescued prisoners in the corridor. They were still being so quiet. It was almost as if they couldn't believe they'd got their freedom back. But they had. Shepard was going to make sure of that.

* * *

Ten minutes later, they were all standing outside the base. As she looked around her, Shepard's heart soared. The Normandy was sitting just a few hundred metres in front of her in the middle of the valley, gleaming in the sunlight. She had never been so happy to see her own ship before.

She wanted to run to it, but the rescued prisoners were still in her care so she couldn't. None of them seemed to be very steady on their feet yet so she had to lead them very slowly towards the Normandy.

Once they were much closer to the ship, she found them a safe, sheltered spot where they could wait under the watchful eye of some of the Normandy crew for the arrival of the Alliance vessel. As she went to move away, one of the oldest men grabbed her arm and thanked her. Shepard stared down at him unable to speak for a few seconds, before she finally choked out, "I'm just glad I could help."

She'd never thought to thank her own rescuers on Mindoir. The shock of what had just happened to her had been so great, however, that she probably wouldn't have been able to speak a single word to them if she'd tried. But this man had made sure to let Shepard know how grateful he was. By the time he let go of her arm again, she had tears in her eyes.

She knew she was on the verge of losing it completely now, but she decided to turn towards all of the survivors one last time. She wanted to say something meaningful to them. In the end, though, the only words she was able to draw out of her mouth were "good luck". When it came down to it, she couldn't think of anything else to say.

Shepard had to wipe her eyes dry before she felt able to start walking the rest of the way towards the Normandy. She gestured for Garrus and Kasumi to follow behind her. She still hated the thought of anyone seeing her cry.

When she drew up to the ship, she saw that Miranda was waiting outside to speak with her. Shepard got the impression that she had been standing there for some time.

The former Cerberus officer greeted Shepard with a stiff nod, but she couldn't entirely hide how pleased she was to see the shore party returning from their mission intact. "Welcome back, Commander," she said, "I must admit I was quite concerned when you didn't make contact last night. The Normandy seemed so...empty without the three of you."

"We're all glad to see you too, Miranda," Shepard replied.

A smile flitted across Miranda's face. "Yes, well, the whole crew was starting to worry. The ship isn't the same when you're not there, Shepard. I have to admit that even I missed seeing you strolling through the corridors." She cleared her throat and put on her let's-get-down-to-business voice. "However, we can't stand here exchanging pleasantries all day. Would you like me to give you an update on the current situation, Commander?"

"Go right ahead."

"As you wish, Commander," Miranda said, "Joker has already made contact with the Alliance and they've agreed to send a ship to conduct an evac operation. Its expected time of arrival is four hours from now, five at most. I've personally dispatched a salvage team to repair the shuttle and return it to the Normandy. They've been instructed to recover the two bodies as well."

Shepard was impressed. "Sounds like you've got everything under control."

She knew Miranda was a perfectionist by nature, but, honestly, she hadn't expected her XO to be able to handle things quite as well as she had done. By her own admission, Miranda wasn't exactly a people person. But the Normandy was still intact and it appeared that not even Jack had tried to stage a rebellion under her command.

"I try my best, Commander," Miranda said, a little bit of pride creeping into her voice. "And I can continue to monitor the situation from this point onwards. The three of you should report to Dr Chakwas for a medical examination as soon as possible. I'll keep you regularly updated."

Shepard nodded. "Thanks, Miranda. You can stay in charge of things like you suggested, but I think I'll wait out here until the Alliance ship arrives. I'll visit the good doctor later."

"What?" Garrus exclaimed from where he'd been standing behind her. "You need to go to Chakwas now; you spent half of yesterday hobbling around."

Shepard shot him a cold look. "I just want to make sure the prisoners get off this planet safely. I'm waiting right here until they leave."

Out of the corner of her eye, Shepard could see Miranda glancing between her and Garrus with a bemused expression on her face. "I'll leave the two of you to discuss this," she said in the end. "I have work I need to tend to anyway." She started to walk away.

"Miranda," Shepard called after her and she turned back. "Thank you, for everything. You've really outdone yourself this time."

Miranda allowed herself to smile properly this time. "I tried to follow your example, Shepard." Her tone was as level as always, but receiving a complement like that from Miranda was like receiving a bear hug from anyone else. Before Shepard could react, however, she was already striding off again, her long hair bouncing off her shoulders with every step.

Shepard watched Miranda go, before looking towards Garrus and Kasumi. "The two of you should head back to the ship and get checked out. You can do whatever you want after that. I don't expect either of you to do any more work today after what we've just been through**."**

Kasumi nodded her assent. "I'll see the two of you later then. It's not that it hasn't been great fun being stranded on this planet with you for two days, but I need to do some serious unwinding now. Sometimes having a fully stocked bar in your quarters really pays off."

She walked away with a grin on her face, but Garrus hadn't budged one inch yet. He really could be a stubborn bastard sometimes. Shepard usually admired him for it, but right now she wasn't entirely sure if his determination was a virtue or an incredibly annoying flaw.

She folded her arms. "Garrus, I told you to go back to the ship,"

"You did, but if you're staying out here, then so am I."

"Don't be stupid. You sustained a head injury less than forty eight hours ago. Dr Chakwas needs to check you out."

"As I recall, I wasn't the one in serious pain yesterday, that was you." Shepard glared at him. "Look, how about we make a deal with each other? We'll both stay out here until the prisoners leave and then we'll go to the med-bay together for treatment. Sound fair, Shepard?"

She didn't know what to say. The truth was she did want him to stay with her, but she was still worried about starting to rely on him too much. Over the years, she'd gotten so used to dealing with everything herself, no matter how hard it got. Besides, he really did need to get his injury looked at.

"So do we have a deal?" he asked, pushing her for an answer.

Shepard got the impression that no matter what she said next, he would still refuse to leave. "Fine, Garrus, but I'm not exactly in a talkative mood right now. I don't think I'll be very good company."

"That's okay. We don't have to talk."

"You do realise we're both going to look insane?"

He smiled at her. "Yeah, that thought had crossed my mind. I just don't care."

"Fair enough."

Shepard plonked herself down on the ground and Garrus dutifully began to hover behind her. After a little while, she saw some of the Normandy crew leave the ship and give blankets and food to all of the rescued prisoners. She hoped the gesture, though small, would bring them some comfort.

Mordin and Dr Chakwas came out of the ship next and began to check each one of the humans for injuries. Shepard could still remember all too clearly the first time she was examined by a doctor after Mindoir. She'd cried through most of it.

Her doctor had been a kindly man, at least sixty years old with a rough-looking beard and grey hair. To his credit, he'd tried his best to calm her down, but without much success. Before he'd left Shepard alone in her hospital bed, he had smiled and told her that she would be as good as new soon enough. Even back then, at sixteen, she could remember thinking what a load of bullshit.

"Shepard?"

She straightened up. "Yeah, Garrus?"

"What are you thinking about? Your forehead's gone all creasy."

"Oh, a few different things."

"You're still sure you want to stay out here?"

She nodded and drifted far away from him again. Half an hour passed by before Mordin and Chakwas finally headed back into the ship, leaving the survivors from the base by themselves. They sat down on the ground, huddling together in small groups, sometimes clinging to each other. No one seemed to be talking much. Perhaps that was hardly a surprise: what could they possibly say to each other after everything they'd just been through?

While Shepard had been waiting for the Alliance shuttle to take her away from Mindoir, she'd stood by herself because she didn't recognise any of the other survivors. At least these people still had each other, even if they didn't feel much like making small talk right now.

At some point, it started to rain, forcing the whole group to seek out shelter under the trees. Huge droplets were pounding into the ground, but Shepard didn't move so neither did Garrus. Soon the rain was falling down both their armoured bodies in streams, creating puddles at their feet.

Garrus shook himself, sending water flying everywhere. "Well this just get better. What's next, lightening? A hurricane? It didn't rain at all when we were in that damn cave and now it pours! I know I told you that turians don't like the cold but we don't care for torrential rain much either." He sounded completely miserable.

"You should go back to the Normandy, Garrus," Shepard said, "You look terrible, like you've been half-drowned. I'm not going to be upset if you leave. I promise. You really don't have to stay with me."

"Yeah I do." His voice had softened. "Anyway, I'm enjoying the wonderful view, it's very...hilly."

By the time the Alliance ship finally arrived, Shepard's hair was soaking and stuck all over her face. She had to push the wet strands out of her eyes so she could watch as the Alliance officers exited the vessel and headed over to help the rescued prisoners. They started to prepare them for evacuation almost immediately. Maybe it was wishful thinking on Shepard's part, but she could have sworn she saw a few of the survivors smile for the first time since they'd been freed from the cells. She supposed it was because they knew there was nothing left to stop them from leaving this planet now. Rescue had come and they would all soon be far away from here.

It took less than half an hour for the Alliance to get everyone, including the batarian mechanic from the base, loaded onto the ship. By then, the sun had come out again and Garrus no longer looked so much like he wanted to curl up in a ball and die.

"They're all on-board now, Shepard," he said.

"Yeah, I know" she replied. "I want to watch them fly away. It's stupid, but I need to see them go."

"It's not stupid."

The Alliance ship caught the sunlight when it finally lifted off, but even though the glare stung Shepard's eyes, she didn't look away. She continued to watch as it ascended higher and higher, eventually soaring miles above the trees and hills.

Leaning back on her elbows, she gestured towards the sky. "The last time I saw Mindoir it was a faraway dot, just like that ship is now. That was almost fifteen years ago and it still feels like yesterday sometimes."

"So you never went back?" Garrus asked. He sat down beside her on the grass.

"No. I didn't want to use what precious little shore leave I got over the years reliving my old childhood traumas." She knew Garrus was watching her intently as she answered him, but she wasn't sure if she wanted to meet his eyes. "Besides, in case you haven't noticed over the last week, I tend to have trouble dealing with anything that upsets me or makes me feel overly emotional."

"Have you ever thought about going back?"

"Not really."

There was an awkward pause for a few seconds before Garrus spoke again. "While we were on the Citadel, I overheard a news report which said Mindoir had put an image of you on its colonial seal. That's quite an honour."

"I guess it is." Shepard relaxed enough to smile at him. "I saw a picture of it on the extranet. The damn thing doesn't look a thing like me. There's no way my nose is that big"

"Well it must be hard to capture someone like you in one image."

Shepard's smile grew wider. "Did you just successfully complement me? I could get used to this."

"You probably shouldn't. I don't always seem to be so great with words when I'm alone with you. Although I've now gone three days now without saying anything too horrific. It must be some kind of record." He paused, looking serious again. "Shepard, do you think you might want to go back to Mindoir one day?"

"I don't know, Garrus..."

She trailed off without giving him a proper answer to his question because she didn't really have one. Not right now anyway. Her eyes returned to the sky. There was a speck high above their heads which might have been the ship, but it was impossible to tell anymore.

"Shepard, listen to me, they'll be okay," Garrus said as if he was reading her thoughts.

"Yeah..."

Perhaps they really would be. Shepard's own life had worked out well in the end, hadn't it? She was a spectre. She had her own ship, a loyal crew, friends. Right now she was sitting with someone who loved her, who was always there for her when she needed him. She couldn't really ask for any more than that.

Garrus realised Shepard was staring at him and cocked his head at her. "Come on, we've watched them leave, it's time to go to the med-bay." He rose back up to his feet. "Don't make me drag you, Shepard."

"I'd like to see you try, Vakarian." But she smiled. "Alright I'm coming."

She held out her hand and let him hoist her back up to her feet. "Lead on, big guy."

* * *

**This chapter was originally meant to be much, much longer but I had to split it in half because it didn't feel cohesive enough. Unfortunately, that left the depressing part out on its own. Writing it was very draining at times so I'm glad it's over and done with now. **

**On the plus side, I'm already looking forward to writing the next part - thankfully it's much less angsty. It will probably still be two weeks before I update again though. I need to recharge for a few days!**


	8. Healing Touch

**Forgive me for the awful chapter title this week. I couldn't think of anything less stupid.**

**This chapter got VERY long. I thought about splitting it into two again, but I had it all written so in the end I decided to post it in its entirety even though it was a nightmare to edit that many words.**

**As you've probably noticed, the rating on this story has gone up. The new rating is for smut, but honestly, there's nothing too explicit in here - I don't really do so well when I try to write that kind of thing. However, I think the content still probably edges above a T rating. **

**One last thing, I was listening to Paramore - The Only Exception a lot when I was writing this. I don't usually like the band, but some of the lyrics are very appropriate to this chapter...others not so much!**

**Thanks for reading :)**

* * *

Shepard and Garrus made it about four inches into the med-bay before Dr Chakwas appeared directly in front of them with a stern look on her face. Her expression made Shepard feel like a badly behaved school child.

Chakwas folded her arms across her chest. "I was expecting the two of you _five_ hours ago."

"Yes, well, we're here now," Shepard said, casting a nervous eye across the med-bay in an attempt to locate any implements of torture that the good doctor might be planning to use on her. She couldn't find any, but she did notice that Chakwas had kept the now empty bottle of Serrice brandy they'd drunk together weeks ago. Seeing it made Shepard smile, although she doubted that the rest of the patients who came through here found the sight quite so reassuring.

Chakwas snapped a pair of gloves onto her hands and the smile slid off Shepard's face. "So which one of you gets the honour of being examined first?"

"Garrus," Shepard said straight away.

He glared at her. "Thanks, Shepard."

"Well, you did have a head injury." She turned to Chakwas. "After that landing yesterday, he was out cold for about ten minutes. I was...worried about him."

Chakwas smiled at him. "Take a seat then, Garrus." He did, though clearly reluctantly.

"Do you want me to leave?" Shepard asked him. She had no problem staying, but maybe he wouldn't want her standing there gawking at him the whole time.

He shook his head. "No. Stay. Share in all the fun."

Shepard ended up leaning against the wall, half-watching while he was examined. She did her best not to laugh at the way he was holding his mandibles close to his face as Chakwas prodded and pocked at him.

However, when Chakwas had to remove the bandage covering the injured side of his face, the situation suddenly wasn't so funny anymore. Shepard saw Garrus become visibly uncomfortable, clenching his hands into fists and avoiding her eyes as his scars were exposed.

She had to make him feel better. "God, Garrus," she said, "You better hope we don't ever run into any krogan women out there, they'll be all over you in a flash. Just so you know, I'm prepared to fight to defend your honour if needs be."

He chuckled, but Chakwas didn't seem particularly amused. "For crying out loud, Shepard, don't make him laugh right now!"

Eventually, after enduring a lot more prodding, Garrus was given a clean bill of health. Shepard was so relieved she had to stop herself from grinning like an imbecile. She'd thought he was probably fine, but it was a load off her mind to have it confirmed by someone who, unlike herself, actually understood turian physiology. All Shepard knew about the subject had been learnt from the notes Mordin had given her and that information was not particularly useful for treating head injuries…

"There now that wasn't so bad, was it?" Chakwas said, although the look on Garrus' face suggested that he didn't agree. "Your turn, Commander."

"Goody," Shepard replied, although she ambled up to the gurney and sat down on it gamely enough.

Garrus walked over to stand close by her. "You need to look at her back, Chakwas. I did my best to treat it but she could barely walk yesterday."

Shepard shook her head. "Don't exaggerate, Garrus."

"I'm not exaggerating." He turned towards Chakwas, ignoring Shepard's attempt to answer him back again. "She started limping a couple of hours after the crash. It got so bad that she ended up having to lean on me for support. By the time it got dark, I was basically dragging her up a hill. It was...tiring."

"Gee, thanks."

"Oh come on, Shepard, you know I didn't mean anything by what I said, I wanted to help you. It's just that you're kind of heavy with all your armour on."

Dr Chakwas coughed. "That's probably not the best comment to make about a human woman, Garrus. I'd be more careful in future."

With a wry grin still on her face, she walked over to the nearest control panel and lowered shutters down over all of the medi-bay windows. Sadly, Shepard knew exactly what Chakwas was going to say next from previous experience.

"Ah, Commander, you're going to have to take most of your clothes off. Perhaps, under these circumstances, Mr Vakarian should leave."

Shepard caught Garrus' eye before he could start to move. "No...that's alright. I mean if you don't mind staying, Garrus, then I'd appreciate your company, despite what you just said about my weight."

As much as she liked and admired Dr Chakwas, Shepard didn't particularly want to be left on her own in this sterile room with her. But that wasn't the main reason she asked Garrus to stay. She needed to show him how much she trusted him, that she wasn't going to draw away from him anymore, no matter what was happening.

Garrus studied her face for a moment, as if he was trying to somehow confirm that she really did want him there. "Okay," he said in the end.

Chakwas looked momentarily surprised but she managed to adjust quickly. Over the years working as a military doctor with the Alliance, she'd probably already seen it all already. "Fine then. I see no real reason why Vakarian can't stay, so long as he doesn't get in the way." She nodded at Shepard, "Undress, Commander."

Shepard obeyed like a good patient, stripping the same way she had done the day before in the cave_. _Soon her armour was stacked in a pile on the floor and her bodysuit was pulled down to her waist.

The cold air in the room made the hairs on her arms stand on end, but other than that she felt alright. Or at least she did until Chakwas spoke again, "Commander, you need to remove your bra it's in my way."

"Oh...right. Of course." Shepard hesitated for a split second and then snapped the clasp open and let it fall down her arms.

Garrus stared at where her bra was now lying on the floor. To his credit, he seemed to be doing everything he could to avoid looking at her now exposed upper-half. "Ah...maybe I should leave, Shepard. I don't want to make you feel uncomfortable."

"You won't," she replied. "And anyway, it's not like you're getting an eyeful of anything you haven't seen before."

She hoped against hope that Chakwas somehow wouldn't catch onto what she'd just said, despite being about a foot away. Unfortunately, the way the doctor almost dropped the sachet of medi-gel she was carrying suggested otherwise.

Well, there was no point wasting time getting embarrassed, especially since she was already in the wonderful position of sitting half-naked in front of two other people. Instead, Shepard just focused her eyes on Garrus and held her hand out to him. He took it straight away.

A few seconds passed and Shepard almost forgot that there was someone else in the room with the two of them. The illusion didn't last long, however, because Chakwas suddenly began to poke at her back with a pair of very cold hands.

Shepard grimaced. She'd hated hospitals and being examined by doctors ever since Mindoir, for very obvious reasons. Usually she had to just grin and bear it and think about something else. This time though at least Garrus was with her. He seemed to notice her discomfort and began to stroke her hand. The action soothed her, distracting her attention away from what was happening unless Chakwas was touching a particularly sensitive area.

Eventually, however, Shepard realised that the doctor had started to sigh heavily. "Is something wrong?" she asked her.

"Well, yes, Commander, this exam would be significantly easier if you weren't insisting on holding one of Vakarian's hands!"

"Right," Shepard said. She stared down at their joined hands and then reluctantly let go, watching as Garrus' arm fell back down to his side.

Thankfully, it didn't take Chakwas much longer to finish the exam. When the doctor stepped away from her back, Shepard accidentally breathed a very audible sigh of relief.

Chakwas took her gloves off. "Commander, you'll be pleased to know that your back is healing well. It may be slightly tender for a few days but it shouldn't give you much more trouble than that."

"Great." Shepard paused. "I can get dressed again, right?"

"Of course."

"Thank God." Shepard hopped off the gurney straight away, pulled her bra on and zipped up her undersuit again. She stopped short of putting her armour back on, however, because she wanted to leave the med-bay as soon as possible and fitting the pieces together would take too damn long.

Once she was decent again she immediately turned towards Chakwas. "Well, we should go...

"Not so fast, Commander," she replied, "I have something else I need to discuss with you."

Shepard stared at her. "I don't understand. You just said my back was fine."

"It is." The stern look from earlier was back on Chakwas' face. "But I had a little conversation with Mordin recently." She paused and Shepard's stomach dropped. "He told me that you were having difficulty sleeping and seemed disorientated. You should have some to see me, Commander, before you left on that mission, I could have helped you."

"I know." Shepard glanced towards Garrus. "I...haven't been myself lately, but I'm starting to feel much better now. Really. I wouldn't lie to you."

Chakwas examined her face closely. "Hmmm. Well in future I hope you remember that I'm always here to help."

Shepard avoided the doctor's eyes. Chakwas was starting to remind her of her mother of all things. It was something about the way she could seem both caring and terribly strict at the same time. "If I start feeling...off again, I'll come to see you, straight away."

"Good, I presume that also means you're going to listen to the advice I'm about to give you?"

"Advice?"

"Yes, as your doctor I recommending that you take a few days off to recover."

"A few days? But I don't think I can afford to take that much time off given the state of the..."

"No arguments, Commander. You're to get some rest."

Shepard bristled. "This is my ship...

Chakwas cut her off again, "Which means you need to be in prime physical condition to lead the rest of the crew, not dragging your feet around the ship and fighting to stay conscious. Besides, I'm recommending Garrus take a few days rest too and I've already relieved Kasumi of active duty for three days even though she was in far better shape than the both of you."

"Oh." Shepard paused to think for a moment. "I suppose I could maybe take a couple of days to recover..."

"Good. I've informed Miranda and the rest of the crew that the three of you will be talking a little break. I'm sure they'll be able to continue on with the repairs without you."

"That's more than a little presumptuous Chakwas," she grumbled, "But thank you, I suppose."

Dr Chakwas smiled at Shepard for a moment and then directed her attention towards Garrus. "Take the Commander to her quarters Officer Vakarian and make sure she doesn't make a break for the CIC en route. She needs some rest and relaxation." She put all her emphasis on the last word. "Perhaps you'll find some way of helping her with that."

As they both headed towards the door, Shepard could have sworn she saw Chakwas wink at her.

* * *

Once they were outside, Garrus started to walk with Shepard down towards the elevator, but then a thought seemed to occur to him and he stopped. "Do you actually want me to come to your cabin with you, Shepard?"

"Of course I do." Her eyes twinkled as she looked at him. "I think we could do with spending some quality time together. Don't you?"

He flared his mandibles at her. "Yeah. That sounds nice..."

As they continued to hold each other's gaze for a moment, Shepard finally allowed herself to believe that the ordeal of the last two days really was over. There were no more batarians left to fight, no more prisoners to rescue and no more medical examinations to endure. They were both back on the Normandy, safe and sound, and in just a few minutes they would be alone together in her cabin**. **

That last thought in particular pleased Shepard very, very much**.**

When they were only about a foot from the elevator, however, she hesitated. Her eyes were drawn towards the sealed door at the other end of the corridor. Kasumi was probably behind it right now, sitting by herself in her quarters only metres away from where Shepard was standing with Garrus.

Shepard hadn't been able to talk to her properly since she'd told her to go after Garrus hours ago and that just wasn't right. She owed Kasumi a debt of gratitude for helping to bring her back together with him and yet she hadn't bothered to thank her once, even though it would only have taken a moment.

There was no real excuse for leaving it any longer when she was already so close to Kasumi's doorway.

Shepard stopped in her tracks._ "_Garrus, I think I need to talk to Kasumi for a sec. Could you wait here for me?"

"Ah, sure." He sounded confused. "Why do you need to speak to her?"

"I just want to thank her for her help on the mission and, well, she got me to come after you when you stormed out of the cave."

"I shouldn't have left like that..."

"Don't be ridiculous, Garrus. With the way I was acting, I'm surprised you didn't try to strangle me there and then."

"I could never do that. After all, who would save the galaxy if you weren't there?"

"Ha! Thanks, big guy." She patted his shoulder. "I won't be gone for long." After spending a week without Garrus already, she was prepared to wait another few minutes to be alone with him again...although she hoped it wouldn't take much longer than that.

"No problem. I'll just stand here counting ceiling tiles until the two of you are finished gossiping about me."

Shepard rolled her eyes at him and then walked up to the door. A second later it was open in front of her, revealing Kasumi curled up on her leather sofa with some sort of lurid purple cocktail clutched in one hand. She was gazing dreamily out of the window as the sun set over the planet outside.

"Hey, Shep," she said after Shepard had taken only a couple of small steps towards her.

"How the hell did you know it was me?"

She shrugged. "I recognised your footsteps."

"Oh." Shepard took a second to digest what Kasumi had just said. "How? Is there something strange about the way I walk?"

"Nah, not really. You can be a little heavy footed sometimes, but that's definitely normal for a marine. I just know what most of the crew's footsteps sound like by now. I've learnt to always listen to what's going on around me because of my particular choice of profession. I guess it's become a little hard to switch off over the years."

"Well, that's relief. I was afraid you were going to tell me I walked like a Neanderthal or something." Shepard paused. "Can I talk to you for a minute?"

"Sure!" She finally turned round to face Shepard. "So I guess you being here means that the people we rescued have got off this planet safe and sound?"

"Yeah…" Shepard trailed off and glanced out of the window at the increasingly dark sky. The Alliance ship would be thousands of light years away by now. "Yeah," she repeated more firmly, "They left about forty minutes ago."

Kasumi smiled. "That's good. But since the mission's all over and done with, shouldn't you be celebrating with Garrus rather than talking to me? Not that it isn't nice to see you."

"He's waiting for me in the hall...I wanted to check on you."

"Well, I'm fine. Ever since Doctor Chakwas gave me a clean bill of health, I've been relaxing in here with a few drinks."

There were two empty cocktail glasses sitting on the floor in by her feet, one of which had a small pink umbrella in it. Seeing them made Shepard feel a little...odd. Unlike her, Kasumi didn't have anyone to keep her company for the rest of tonight.

"Are you okay, Shep?" Kasumi asked.

"Yeah..." She moved closer to her friend. "I also came here because I wanted to thank you."

"You did? For what?" Kasumi's eyes peeked out from under her hood as she spoke and she seemed surprisingly sober considering the amount of alcohol that had to be coursing through her system

"I'm not sure how to put this exactly," Shepard replied, forming the words slowly, "I guess I'm trying to thank you for being such an annoying, interfering busybody throughout the entire time we were stranded on this planet together. For helping me sort things out with Garrus."

Kasumi let out a short laugh. "No problem. I thought all the two of you needed was a little push in the right direction. You seemed so miserable and lost without each other and I was determined to see you both happy again."

While she was talking, Shepard mind flashed back to being left alone in a cave with Garrus for half an hour, to being stuck freezing cold on the cave floor because Kasumi had stolen all the spare blankets...

"A 'little push', Kasumi?" she said incredulously.

"Well, some situations call for subtlety and subterfuge. Others don't." There was clear amusement in her voice. "I decided direct action would work better on someone like you."

"Well...I guess you must have been right about that so thank you."

Kasumi shrugged. "Any time, Shep."

She made it sound like what she'd done for Shepard was nothing at all, but that wasn't true. Without her constant interfering, Shepard knew she never would have resolved things so quickly with Garrus. She liked to think she would have come to her senses in the end, but God knows how long it would have taken.

There had to be some way to repay Kasumi for her help, but off the top of her head, the only thing Shepard could think of was somehow hooking her up with Jacob. Not an easy undertaking for someone who personally had far more experience of the battlefield than of romantic relationships. Still, it wasn't exactly a bad idea. Kasumi did genuinely seem to like Jacob and he was an okay guy in Shepard's books. A little dull maybe, but basically nice and he would almost certainly treat Kasumi right if he could tear himself away from the guns in the CIC for long enough.

Perhaps she could tell Jacob that Kasumi needed his help to develop a new exercise regime and see if things took off from there, or invite them both up to her quarters to watch a vid. Well, she would probably think of a less stupid idea eventually. First she had a few other pressing matters to attend too…

She gestured towards the door. "I better go."

"Yes…I suppose you don't want to keep Garrus waiting much longer. I think you've put him through enough already."

"Unfortunately that's probably true..."

With a nod of her head, Shepard started to walk towards the door, but Kasumi called her back.

"Just one last thing, Shep," she said. Shepard paused in the middle of the room and saw that Kasumi's expression was no longer as playful as it had been. "I know it's hard to believe with all the darkness we see most days in this job, but things can work out well sometimes. I've travelled all over this galaxy and I know there's good out there, along with all the bad. You have to try to remember that. Don't ever let the good pass you by."

"You think that's what I was doing?"

Their eyes met for a moment. "Wasn't it?"

"Maybe. Not anymore though."

"Good." Kasumi was back to smiling. She swirled the contents of the drink in her hand. "You might find it hard to believe, Shep, but I could see how much you liked Garrus from the first time I went on a mission with the two of you. You were constantly looking at him when you thought he couldn't see you."

"I didn't realise I was so obvious."

"Ah, well I wouldn't worry too much. Garrus was doing exactly the same thing to you. I wasn't so sure what it meant coming from him though. Turians are a hell of a lot harder to read than humans."

Shepard definitely hadn't expected Kasumi to say that. If Garrus really had been glancing her way all those months ago, then she certainly hadn't noticed. It wasn't until weeks and weeks after she'd recruited him that she first began to feel like some of the looks shared between them were becoming strangely charged.

She furrowed her brow. "Are you sure? I don't think he ever thought about me as more than a friend back then."

"Maybe not consciously, but the idea was probably lodged in the back of his mind somewhere. Now how he feels about you is so obvious even I can see it..." Kasumi glanced at the door. "And he's out there waiting for you right now so I should stop babbling."

"You're not babbling. It 's been nice talking to you, Kasumi."

"You should go though." She gestured to a book lying on the sofa. "Don't worry about me. I'll be here reading a romantic novel while you enjoy the real thing."

"Uh, thanks. Try not to get too drunk. I think we'll be taking off soon and motion sickness is never fun. Unfortunately, I happen to know that from personal experience." Shepard paused. "I'll see you very soon, Kasumi."

Upon returning to the corridor, Shepard realised that Garrus had barely moved from the spot where she'd left him. She couldn't believe that Archangel, the defender of Omega, was standing there waiting so patiently for her.

As she walked towards him he looked both very pleased to see her and a little irritated at the same time. "You left me here for ten minutes. I was starting to get funny looks from the rest of the crew."

"I'm back now." She gave him her best smile. "Think you can you forgive me?"

"I suppose so," he replied with mock seriousness.

"Thanks." Shepard pressed the button for the elevator. The doors opened a couple of seconds and she gestured for Garrus to go inside but he stayed still.

"After you," he said.

"My, my, Garrus, I had no idea you could be such a gentleman."

She clambered in and he followed quickly behind her.

* * *

When the elevator doors opened again, Shepard bounded straight out of them, through the hallway and then down towards the sleeping area of her quarters. So much had happened since she was last standing in here with Garrus, most of it not so good, some of it bloody awful, but she had a feeling that things were about to turn around for her.

By the time she reached the bed, however, Garrus was still hovering awkwardly by the stairs. He seemed to be pretending to have got distracted by the fish tank. The ploy would have been a hell of a lot more convincing if there been something more than water and weeds in there.

"Are you planning on standing there like a statue all night?" she asked him. "Because if you are, I'll have to find something else to entertain me."

He ran his hand along the railing by the stairs. "So... you really do want me to be in here with you?"

"I want you here." She made sure there was not even the barest hint of doubt in her voice.

"And you definitely haven't changed your mind about us?"

"You mean since we left Dr Chakwas office ten minutes ago? Even I'm not that fickle."

"I mean in general. Can you blame me for checking one last time?"

Shepard shook her head. "No, I guess I can't. Look, I know you told me to stop apologising, but let me say it one last time: I'm sorry. I acted like a complete idiot and I treated you terribly, but I'll never do that to you again. I can't resist your charms anymore, Garrus, it's too damn hard and I want to be with you. So don't leave me alone in here with my empty fish tank tonight. Stay with me."

His whole body appeared to be more relaxed by the time she'd finished speaking. "You must really have a thing for men with scars."

"No. Only you, Garrus. Although I do think they do make you look kind of dashing."

"So...what now?" he said after a slight pause. He didn't seem to have considered all the possible implications of what he was asking her.

Shepard couldn't work out how to respond straight away. She wandered down to her bed and ran her hands across the sheets. A minute or two had passed before she finally turned back to face Garrus.

She looked him straight in the eye and slowly undid the zipper of her bodysuit. Surprise registered across his face when he realised what she was doing. Obviously he hadn't expected her to react to his question quite like that, but she kept going anyway. She pulled her arms out of the suit so that it was hanging from her waist and then yanked it down her legs. After removing her boots, she kicked the whole thing off her. Since she was down to only her underwear already, she decided there was really no point in stopping there.

Twenty seconds later, she was standing completely bare in front of him, her clothes and shoes piled at her feet. Nervous tingles began to spread across her body, but when she noticed the way Garrus' mandibles were flaring uncontrollably while he looked at her, they disappeared.

All of a sudden, the giddy, almost heady feeling, she'd had a week ago when he'd first wandered into her quarters in that horrible suit with a wine bottle clutched tightly in his hand came rushing back. She found herself almost overwhelmed with the urge to laugh. She ended up smirking at him instead as she closed the gap between them.

When she finally reached him, she cupped his face in her hands. She could feel his mandibles fluttering out against her skin. "I don't need to show you the diagrams Mordin sent me of positions comfortable for both turians and humans, do I, big guy? Some of them are pretty graphic."

They really were. She may not have watched the vids properly, but she did look at the diagrams. More than a few times. She'd felt a little freaked out at first. Before Garrus, she'd never given any thought to what a naked turian looked like, let alone how they acted in bed. But once she'd allowed herself picture the two of them doing some of the things in the diagrams, she'd begun to feel something else entirely.

Garrus laughed a little nervously. "No. I think I can figure things out for myself from here." He ran his hands down her bare back. "Besides, I've already seen them. He sent them to me too."

As soon as he finished speaking, Garrus reached down and began to undo his armour, but Shepard grabbed his hands. "Let me...please."

"If you want..."

That was all the permission she needed. She pulled his gloves off first, dropping them to the floor. Next her hands travelled across his chest plate for a few seconds before suddenly changing direction and moving towards his visor instead. Last time, they'd made it all the way to the bed before Shepard had realised the damn thing was still on his face. She was so used to seeing him wear it that it had begun to seem like it was part of him. Without it covering one of his eyes, he looked somehow more vulnerable, more open. She preferred him like that.

After taking the visor off him, Shepard threw it onto the sofa and brought both her hands to the seals on his chest plate. Once that had been tossed to one side as well, she turned her attention to the rest of his armour. Even though she struggled a little at some points, her small fingers catching on the seals, Garrus obediently kept his arms at his sides. He seemed content to watch her face as she slowly and determinedly stripped him.

It wasn't long before he was down to only his skin tight black bodysuit, which was doing absolutely nothing to hide how he'd reacted to her touch. She went to pull that off him to, but he finally seemed to grow impatient and ended up reaching out to help her. A few seconds later, the suit was lying in a heap at their feet beside all of Shepard's clothes and the scattered pieces of his armour.

Both naked now, they stood a foot apart and simply stared at each other. Shepard had only seen Garrus like this once before after spending weeks and weeks wondering what exactly was hiding underneath his armour. The landscape of his body was still so new to her. She took him in slowly, letting her eyes linger on his tiny waist, his broad chest and on…other places. She examined all the different textures covering him, the hard plates and the softer skin, and thought about how good it was going to feel to finally touch him again.

"You're beautiful, Garrus," she said.

He chuckled. "Well, I was hoping for ruggedly handsome but I suppose I'll take it." His eyes ran up and down her body in a way that made her feel warm all over. "You don't look so bad yourself."

"So my waist is still supportive enough for you?"

"Definitely."

Laughing softly, she closed the small gap between them so she could loop her arms around his neck. "Good," she whispered, pressing her body flush against his, before leaving a trail of kisses on the side of his face. "That's good..."

Garrus mumbled her name into her ear once and she froze. He was still calling her Shepard. Well, of course he was after what had happened after the relay, but that was the name that he yelled at her on the battlefield, it didn't seem appropriate in this situation.

She took in a breath. "It's Teagan, Garrus. Call me Teagan when we're alone together, okay? Not Shepard. I don't want to be 'Shepard' tonight. We're way past that now."

"Are you sure?" He looked genuinely worried. Shepard couldn't really blame him. "You promise me that you're not going to freak out for a week again? I don't think my nerves can take it this time."

She kissed his cheek again and continued to cling to his tall form. "I promise, Garrus. Call me by my real name. Please."

"Okay then..." He hesitated right on the precipice of saying it, watching her face for a moment. "Okay then, Teagan."

To Garrus' very obvious relief, she didn't panic this time. Instead, hearing her name spoken in his deep rumbling tones made her lips curl into a small smile. She could tell how much saying it meant to him. When she was a teenager she hadn't been sure if the name had suited her, but right at that moment she wouldn't have changed it for anything.

"That's better," she said, resting her head on his shoulder.

As she leant against him, Garrus started to play with her hair, sometimes smoothing it down with his hands, sometimes curling strands of it around his talons. Occasionally, he tugged on it a little too hard, but she didn't say anything. She just stood there and tried to work out what was going on in his head.

Since he'd only been with turian women before her, she knew he was bound to find hair a bit strange. Hell, as far as she could tell, humans were the only council race to even have any of it on their bodies. Hopefully, though, it would seem normal to him soon enough.

"I used to imagine what it would be like to touch your hair, even before all of this happened between us," he mumbled, his hands still tangled in her dark bob, "I told myself that it was just natural curiosity, even though I thought about it most days." He let out a chuckle. "Honestly, it's much softer than I expected it to be back then. More similar to strands of silk than anything else. I like it...a lot."

Shepard raised her head and looked at him with a pleased expression spreading across her face. "I'm glad. It's not exactly the most exciting colour or anything, but I suppose I could grow it out a bit more if you wanted?"

"You don't have to do that. I think it's nice the way it is."

If she hadn't fallen for him weeks ago, that comment alone would have been enough to win her over. She knew perfectly well that there was nothing special about her hair, and he probably did too. "Well I've always liked your fringe," she said, "For want of a better word, it's very...impressive."

At the end of her sentence, she reached up to run her fingers across it and then started to stroke the soft skin covering the back of his neck. Judging by the way Garrus groaned and stopped moving his hands through her hair, he wholeheartedly approved of what she was doing to him.

Shepard's eyes strayed to the bed. Sure standing here wrapped in his arms like this was nice, but she knew from previous experience what would be better. Their clothes were already gone, along with the last of her restraint, and they both wanted this. There really was no point in them waiting any longer before taking things further.

She took his both his hands firmly in hers. "Come with me, Garrus." He looked at their hands rather than answering her. "Now. Unless you want to put that song from Flux on first as mood music?"

"Ah...no. I think I'm good"

"I just thought I should check."

She smirked at him and he let her lead him towards the bed, his hands still gripped tightly in hers. They somehow ended up falling onto it in a tangle of limbs. As Shepard lay there laughing, Garrus positioned himself so he was leaning down over her, their bodies pressing closely together.

He stared down at her as if he was trying to memorise exactly how she looked at that moment, with her skin flushed and her lips parted. Then he placed one of his hands on the bite mark on her shoulder, gently stroking the damaged tissue there for a few seconds. "I still can't believe you didn't put medi-gel on this. It's already starting to scar. What the hell were you thinking?"

She kept giggling. "I have absolutely no idea."

"Well I promise I'll be more careful with you this time."

Without any further preamble, he began to run his talons all over her, caressing her hips, her waist, her breasts and whatever else he could reach. Shepard's laughter turned to whimpers and moans as he touched her, leaving light red trails on her skin and making her body tingle in anticipation of what was coming next. She got even louder when he eventually leant forward to lick all along her jaw line.

"I missed you so much when we weren't talking," he mumbled against her cheek. "You have no idea. Whenever I heard footsteps outside the main battery, I hoped it would be you coming to see me again."

Even through the haze that was starting to settle over her, Shepard felt a stab of guilt. "I wish I'd come sooner than I did... I was so stupid, so unbelievably fucking stupid, but at least I have you back now." She paused to put more emphasis on her next four words, "I need you, Garrus."

"Well it took you long enough to realise it." He licked her again with his raspy tongue and she couldn't stop herself from gasping. "Though I'm glad you came to your senses in the end."

"You really can be such an ass sometimes."

"But you love me anyway."

"You're also a smug bastard."

Before he could answer her back with yet another wisecrack, Shepard drew his face towards hers and pressed her mouth against his. Mordin's notes had made it clear that turians didn't kiss the way humans did so she hadn't really tried this with him before, but now she wanted to. She ran her tongue across his hard lips and was surprised when he opened his mouth and began to stroke her soft tongue with his rougher one.

When they eventually pulled apart from each other, Garrus looked strangely nervous. "Did I do it right?"

"Do what right?" It was a struggle for Shepard to get out even those three words.

"The kiss."

"Oh...yes, yes, definitely. I mean it was different from kissing a human. But good different."

"Glad to hear it." He drew in a couple of breaths. "After things went...wrong between us, I looked up some more stuff on the extranet about what human women, ah, like. I wanted to make sure I hadn't done something wrong last time when we were, well, you know."

"Garrus..." She had to bite back another desperate apology. "Garrus, trust me, you didn't need to worry about that. At all."

"No?"

"No." She pulled him back down to her and kissed him again, her movements far more fraught than before. God, she wished more than anything that she could somehow siphon out all the pain she'd caused him and take it from his body into hers. Whatever time they ended up having together, be it days, months, years, whatever, she was going use it to make things up to him. Right now she would settle for making him forget all about the last week for a few hours.

She kept kissing him until she had to pull away, lightheaded, to draw some air back into her lungs. Garrus didn't look nervous anymore. "That was ...nice."

Somehow she regained enough composure to grin weakly at him. "Yes...very nice...did you...did you learn anything else new?"

"A few things. Maybe I'll, ah, show you some of them later."

"I'm pretty sure I'd like that..."

He ran one of his talons across her lips and more jolts of pleasure went shooting through her body. "I think I'm already getting used to this kissing thing though. I can see why humans make such a big deal out of it. I like the closeness...the intimacy."

"Good," she said, her voice coming out even huskier than even she'd expected it to. She wrapped both her arms around him and began to rub the soft skin on his neck with one of her hands, while the other rested gently on his back. "You're going to be doing it a lot more from now on."

She felt Garrus shift his position over her slightly as she continued to caress him. He gazed down at her. "Are you sure you want this, Teagan?" His voice came out strained. "I mean really sure? I don't think I can hold back much longer."

Shepard, already pinned underneath him, at his mercy, her body aching with pent-up desire, looked into eyes. "Of course I am, Garrus. Please..."

He nipped her shoulder, very gently, pressing his sharp teeth lightly against her skin, and she couldn't speak anymore. She was so ready for him, so wet, he must have known that really. Maybe he just had to hear her say out loud how much she needed him. For a while, she'd thought that she'd never be back here with him. That all she would have to comfort her through the long and lonely nights would be the memories of their one time together. Now he had her pressed down onto the mattress again. She wanted to give all of herself to him, to keep going until they were both spent and lying exhausted in a heap in her bed.

She tried to urge him on by wrapping her legs around him, but instead he simply leant down to press their foreheads together in his own version of a kiss. There was something so sweet and intimate about the gesture, coming as it did right at that moment. Shepard closed her eyes. She savoured the feel of his skin on hers, the amazing warmth of his body as it covered her smaller one. Over the last fifteen years she'd forgotten what it felt like to belong somewhere, to belong to someone else. But she knew she would be happy to be his from now on.

After a few seconds, he pulled away from her. "Look at me, Teagan."

She did. She could see the desire in his eyes, the want, the need...the love. She knew she was looking at him just the same way. She also knew if he kept her waiting for much longer then she was going to lose her damn mind.

"You're still sure?" he forced out one last time. "You still want me?"

"I want you, Garrus," she panted, tightening her grip on him.

Her eyes were still locked onto his when he finally joined their bodies together.

* * *

Hours later, after snatching a little bit of sleep, Shepard woke up to find Garrus lying next to her. She stayed still for a few seconds, listening to his steady breathing, before gently shifting his arm off her waist and raising herself up into a sitting position. She winced as her thighs rubbed together. Just like last time, she'd forgotten to use any of the bloody lotion Mordin had given her, except now the chafing was a hell of a lot worse. Tonight, they hadn't fallen asleep after a single round. Instead, the quiet passion between them had given way to something more intense, leaving Shepard crying out and clawing at the sheets. Not that she was even close to complaining of course.

She might be sore now, but staring down at the turian beside her, the pain didn't seem to matter all that much.

Admittedly, though, she still found it a bit strange to see someone else lying so casually in her bed. After years of sleeping alone, it was going to be hard to adjust to this sudden change. However, given time, she was sure she could get used to it. She was going to have to if she wanted this to work, and she did, so very badly. Without Garrus, all she'd been left with were her own desperate fantasies and they had been no substitute for the real thing.

She leant down towards him. The sheets had become so tangled around his body while he slept that only his head and fringe were now visible above them. He looked completely adorable. Shepard wanted to touch him, but she didn't think it was a good idea to disturb his rest so instead she simply put her lips close to his ear and whispered, "I love you."

Garrus moved his head. "I love you too. Now would you please lie down and stop staring at me."

"You're awake!"

"I'm a light sleeper."

"I didn't mean to wake you."

"I got that." He cracked his eyes open to look at her, "You know, I was really enjoying holding you until you started flailing about like a dying fish."

"You were?"

He closed his eyes again. "Yeah."

A wide smile crept onto Shepard's face. She wondered if he liked the feel of his hard body against her softer one as much as she did now. She loved all the contrasts and differences between them, even small things like the way he had three talons instead of her five fingers. He fascinated her. When she'd said that she thought he was beautiful earlier, she really had meant it. His scars could never change that.

After all, her own body had been far more of a mess than his was now when Cerberus had first brought her back. Jagged, glowing lines had criss-crossed over her skin from her feet right up to her forehead, but Garrus hadn't ever seemed to notice them. And now they were almost all gone. She knew Garrus' scars weren't going to simply fade away like hers had, but she didn't need them to. No matter what he looked like, she would love him.

Garrus stirred again. "You're still staring at me, aren't you? Come back here, Teagan."

She offered no resistance when he suddenly leant upwards and grabbed her with his big hands. After he'd finished manoeuvring her, she was back in his arms with her head resting on his chest.

He brushed a few stray strands of hair away from her face. "See? That's much better."

She wrapped her arms around him and closed her eyes. She had to agree.

* * *

**Just to make it clear, this isn't the last chapter. There's still a couple left. Next update will be sometime during the next two weeks :)**

**Note: I know I made no mention of the whole levo-dextro allergy thing in this chapter, but I think Teagan and Garrus would have discussed that the first night they spent together if they were going to talk about it at all. Also, as someone who's personally not allergic to anything in real life, I figure they aren't necessarily going to have any kind of major, life-threatening reaction to each other anyway.**


	9. Safe haven

**This story's getting close to the end now so I thought I'd say another big thank you to anyone who's kept reading, put the story on alert, favourited it or left a review. Knowing some people are enjoying 'Home' has kept me writing even when I've been busy, tired, sick, whatever. Thank you all so much! **

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Behind the locked door of the captain's cabin, Shepard was lying in bed in an undignified heap with Garrus. They'd both been half-awake for a couple of hours now. At one point, they'd even got up, dressed and talked for a little while, but then they'd somehow ended up right back in bed again minus all of their clothes...

Since leaving the med-bay three days ago, the two of them had been following Dr Chakwas' advice almost to the letter for a change and getting some much needed rest and relaxation. Neither of them had done any work. In fact, so far, they had hardly bothered to stray outside of the four walls of Shepard's quarters at all.

In their absence, Miranda and a rather nervous Jacob had been left to take charge of the Normandy and its ragtag crew. Both had been sending regular reports to Shepard's omni-tool whenever they were on duty, keeping her updated on how the repairs were progressing and letting her know if they were encountering any problems.

Shepard had read them all to reassure herself that no one had started a mutiny yet, kept in touch Miranda and Jacob when she needed to and then afterwards gone back to hanging out with Garrus. Maybe taking a break like this had been a little selfish, but it was only for such a short time. Tomorrow she was planning to return to active duty and everything would be normal again. Well normal apart from her and Garrus being together.

Admittedly, she was still finding it strange to hear him call her by her first name, but perhaps that was to be expected as it had been almost fifteen years since she'd last been 'Teagan' to anyone. Besides, she certainly didn't want him to keep calling her 'Shepard' or 'Commander' all of the time. They weren't just soldiers fighting side by side anymore, they were mates, and, despite her few lingering doubts and fears, that was the way she wanted things to stay from now on.

Garrus seemed to be adjusting to the change in their relationship surprisingly well too, despite never having been with a human before. Even Shepard's almost constant eating and habit of leaving things scattered all across the room didn't appear to bother him that much. To top it all, two nights ago he'd somehow managed to cope with her becoming a gibbering mess after dreaming about Mindoir again.

This time she'd been convinced that she was cornered by a squadron of batarians in her old cabin in the dead of night. They were everywhere, in all of the rooms, lurking out in the garden, all ready to come after her. Garrus had heard her crying out and had tried to wake her up, but she'd ended up scrabbling at his chest with her nails as the dream melded with reality and she thought she was under attack. She'd been so mortified when she'd finally come to and realised that the only other person in the room with her was a very concerned looking Garrus, who was now holding both of her arms so she couldn't injure herself on his plates.

Usually she would have bolted out of bed right after a nightmare, but he'd held her fast. She could've pushed him off easily enough of course, once her body had stopped shaking, and yet she hadn't even tried to. Instead she'd simply stayed where she was and let him wipe away the tears that were falling from her eyes. After a moment or two of painful silence, she'd started to apologise to him for what had just happened, but he'd cut her off, telling her that he understood what she was going through because he had nightmares too, although his were of the filthy streets of Omega rather than of Mindoir.

During all the hundreds of times they'd spoken over the last few months, he'd never mentioned any of this to her before. Shepard knew how hard he found it to open up to anyone, even to her sometimes, but he had done right at that moment just because he wanted to make her feel better. As he'd kept talking, she'd buried her face against his cowl and felt him wrap his strong arms securely around her. Eventually she'd fallen asleep to the sound of his deep voice still rumbling in her ear, telling her that everything was going to be okay.

The next morning she'd realised if Garrus hadn't run away screaming from her after going through that little ordeal, then he probably never would. There were so many reasons why their relationship wouldn't work, shouldn't work, even if you ignored the fact that they weren't the same species, but judging by the last few days it was going to anyway.

And, nightmare aside, Shepard had enjoyed almost every minute they'd spent together.

They'd talked a lot, sometimes learning more about each other, but more often than not chatting about nothing in particular. They'd slept for hours and hours, or at least Shepard had. She'd turned out to be even more exhausted than she'd thought, sleeping far past the time she would usually have needed to get up for her shifts. They'd also 'sparred' frequently and enthusiastically. Shepard wasn't sure if she'd ever be able to look at her desk, sofa or shower the same way again.

Most of the time they'd simply kept each other entertained, although they had occasionally decided to play a game or watch a vid. One afternoon they'd even attempted to play Skyllian Five again, but it had ended acrimoniously, as had chess because Garrus kept insisting she hadn't explained the rules properly. After that, Shepard had decided it might be best if they stayed away from games where they had to directly compete against each other for quite a while, if not for the rest of their lives.

Watching the vids had generally gone a little better, although the movie 'Citadel' had turned out to be pretty terrible. Despite being billed as an accurate retelling of the Eden Prime War, it seemed like no one behind the film had checked their facts properly. Either that or something was very wrong with Shepard's memory of those six months. Towards the end, she had almost fallen off the sofa in a fit of laughter because her on-screen counterpart decided to have a brief sex scene up against a wall with her Staff Lieutenant. Garrus hadn't seemed quite so amused by this turn of events so Shepard had decided it was best to distract him. They both still had no clue how the film had ended, although neither really cared.

The few times they'd ventured outside of her quarters during their little break had mainly been to eat in the mess hall. They could have kept having food sent up, but Shepard hadn't wanted to feel as if she was being waited on by her own crew.

When they'd arrived in the mess hall yesterday for their usual evening meal, there had already been a handful of crewmembers gathered round the table, lost deep in conversation with each other. As soon as they saw Garrus and Shepard approach, however, they had all stopped talking. It was painfully obvious that they'd been caught gossiping about the two of them, but Shepard had sat right down with them anyway and then gestured for Garrus to do the same.

Thankfully the awkwardness hadn't lasted long, although at one point Crewman Hawthorne had thought it would be hilarious to ask Garrus, whether he preferred human or turian design now he had served on the Normandy SR2 as well as on Turian ships. Garrus had got about two sentences into his answer before Shepard had kicked him under the table and he'd finally caught on to the joke.

That comment aside, the rest of the meal had gone well and it had been nice to see the familiar faces of some of the crew again. Honestly though, Shepard was enjoying being curled up with Garrus this morning in the peace and quiet of her cabin far more.

With her eyes closed and her skin brushing against his plates, she couldn't remember the last time she'd felt so content. It was silly of course, but while they were shut in this small room together she knew that nothing could possibly come and tear them apart from each other.

She wished the moment never had to end, but like everything, of course it did. Time was always going to keep marching on and on. Next week they might be off fighting or hordes of enemies on the other side of the galaxy. There was really no way of knowing.

Eventually, Shepard heard Garrus begin to mumble a few words close to her ear, "Shep...Teagan are you still awake?"

Shepard looked up at him with her eyes half-open and still unfocused. "Mmm. Sort of."

"Me too. Pretty wide awake actually."

"Oh…" Her eyes shot fully open, "Well, if you want to get up or anything, that's fine. I don't mind staying here on my own..." She wanted to mean it, but as soon as she finished speaking, she wrapped one of her arms more tightly around him.

"No, no, that's alright. I like keeping you warm."

He ran his hand across her arm and she relaxed the limb again so that it was resting limply across the hard plating on his chest. "Good…" She closed her eyes for another moment, "I've been wondering, Garrus, do turians ever, ah, snuggle like this? You seem a bit too rough and spikey."

Shepard could tell he was trying not to laugh as he answered her. "Not really. It depends. Turians tend to like to have their own space a lot more than humans seem to. You're a more… affectionate species in general."

"It doesn't bother you, does it?"

"No. Snuggling with you is nice." He ran his hand down her back, before resting it on her hip and lightly squeezing the flesh there. Shepard jerked as his touch sent little tingles shooting down her legs and he chuckled. "You're so soft and squishy. I like how your body fits around mine."

Shepard let out a contented sigh. "Good. Don't worry I won't tell anyone that you're my new teddy bear."

"Care to explain to me what the hell a teddy bear is?"

"It's a toy that human children sometimes bring to bed with them. They're soft and fluffy and nice to hold." Garrus stared at her blankly. "I don't have one in here. I'll have to show you a picture later."

"You know," he said, gently raising them both up into a sitting position so he could look around the room, "You don't have much of anything in here, Teagan."

He was right of course, but she hadn't realised her lack of personal affects would be so obvious to someone who seemed to own so little himself.

At that moment turian and human clothes were scattered all across the floor from the way they'd hastily undressed each other earlier. However, apart from that, her room was grey, orderly and bare. The fish tank was as empty as it had been a week ago and Shepard's old N7 helmet was still the only ornament sitting on her desk.

Shepard turned her head away from it. "I guess you have a point, Garrus. Maybe if you're okay with it, we could get a photo taken together sometime to put on my desk instead of that damn helmet." She paused, realising how that would actually be quite a major step for her, and for him. "Or maybe it's a bad idea."

"No, it's not," he replied, "After all, who wouldn't want to have a picture of a ravishingly handsome turian like me sitting on their desk?"

She couldn't help laughing. "That's true. You don't think it might be tempting fate though, do you?"

"You're starting to sound like Kasumi."

"Yeah I guess I am_." _She glanced towards him. "I just don't want to lose you, Garrus. I had photos of my friends and family hung all over my bedroom walls on Mindoir and, well, you already know exactly how that ended. Sometimes I think a small part of me is still waiting on the next catastrophe."

"Teagan, I'm here with you right now." He nuzzled the top of her head as if to prove his point. "It's going to take a force worse than the Reapers to pull me away from you. So stop worrying. The picture will brighten up the place."

Shepard smiled at him. "Okay then, Garrus. We'll get it taken soon and then I'll flush my old helmet out of the nearest airlock."

"Great," he replied, leaving Shepard surprised by how enthusiastic he sounded. If he was faking it for her benefit then he was doing a damn good job.

"I'm glad you're okay with the idea," she said. "It's been years since I last willingly had a photo taken of myself though. Sometimes cameras make me feel uncomfortable. I don't really know why."

Garrus started to gently stroke her arm again. "I'm sure the picture will turn out fine. I'll try my best to look dashing and you, well you always seem to look good anyway."

"You really think so?"

"Mmm. For a squishy human you're sort of beautiful."

Shepard laughed, but her heart was fluttering in her chest. "Thanks, big guy. I'm pretty sure no one's ever thought I was beautiful before, human men tend to prefer…well, not me anyway."

"I find that very hard to believe." He cleared his throat, obviously embarrassed at how sappy he'd just sounded. "So…anyway, do you have any other plans to redecorate the place that you want to run by me while I'm here?"

After thinking for a couple of seconds, she gestured towards the fish tank. "I guess I could get some new fish. I'm tired of staring at those pieces of weed."

"Ah." He paused. "I don't know if that's such a good idea...you seemed a little upset the last time they all died."

In fact, she'd been so upset that she'd ended up wandering into the main battery and talking to Garrus about her "poor fish" for almost an hour. He'd done his best to comfort her, even though he was clearly trying to work on his calibrations.

She looked up at him. "I'll be more careful this time. I started to forget to feed them before because I was so stressed and distracted. I won't let that happen again."

Unfortunately, Garrus still didn't seem at all convinced. "But do you really need fish when you already have that hamster? Percy or whatever you decided to call him in the end."

"Percy seems to hate me," Shepard said, glancing in the direction of his cage. She'd tried to show him to Garrus yesterday and he'd bitten her. "Fish are far more calming…I used to like watching them swim about the tank. Next time we're on the Citadel, I think I'll pick some more up."

"Poor things. They'll have no idea about the terrible fate that awaits them."

"Garrus!" Shepard pulled her hand off his chest and punched him lightly on his cowl, despite knowing it would probably hurt her knuckles far more than it would hurt him. "I've said I'll be more careful."

"Alright, alright."

"You know what, if you're so concerned, then you can help me feed them, although that will mean you'll have to come to my quarters regularly when you're not on duty."

"I think I can do that for you."

"Good…"

Shepard stared out at her surroundings again. There was one other thing that she'd been thinking about a lot over the last few days which would infinitely improve her room. The thought of suggesting it made her nervous, but screw it, she'd already brought up the idea of them getting a photo taken together out of the blue and he'd seemed pleased_. _

"You know, Garrus," she said slowly and deliberately, "If you're going to be coming in here to feed my fish anyway, you may as well stay in my quarters most nights. Or every night. You could even leave some of your things in here too, if you want to."

"I could?"

"Yeah. I mean it makes a lot of sense." She stopped short of telling him just how much the whole idea appealed to her. Sure it might take a little while for them both to adjust to the change, but she loved the thought of coming back to her cabin after a long shift and seeing his sniper rifle on her desk. Then seeing a trail of his clothes on the floor and him lying in her bed, waiting for her...

Shepard realised that Garrus was studying her face carefully. "What's wrong?" she asked him.

"I just want to make sure you've thought this through before I answer. A few days ago you said you didn't want to label this yet." He gestured between them. "But if I'm going in and out of your quarters every day then the crew are going to realise that we're not just having a fling. At the moment some of them might still think you've developed a temporary fetish for turians."

"Oh…look, forget what I said before, Garrus, I've…I've changed my mind. I'd much rather have you staying here with me than go back to feeling lost and lonely every night. I know it will be strange for us both at first, but I think we can make it work if we try." A thought suddenly occurred to her, "Unless you'd rather keep this casual? I mean that's okay…"

"No," he said firmly. "I don't give a damn if the crew thinks I'm your mate as long as you don't. Besides, I'll enjoy coming up here to you."

Shepard beamed at him. "It's settled then. So…should we shake on it? Or seal it with a kiss?

Before he could answer her, she leant forward and decided for him, kissing both his mandibles, his forehead and then his tiny nose in quick succession. She paused to lock eyes with him for a moment before finally pressing her lips against his mouth. He immediately began to kiss her back, tangling one of his hands in her dark hair and stroking her tongue with his.

It had only been three days since his first real kiss, but he was already getting pretty damn good at it. In fact, he'd turned out to be fast learner all-round, seeming to delight in finding new ways to make Shepard whimper and moan. She couldn't believe how lucky she'd got just this once.

When they eventually broke away from each other after a few delightful moments, Shepard rested her cheek against Garrus' cowl and he began to stroke her dishevelled hair. She had a smile on her face so wide it was making her cheeks hurt. "This means we're officially roommates now…"

He flared his mandibles at her. "I guess it does."

"And you'll finally have a proper bed. Kasumi, told me a couple of weeks ago that you've been sleeping on the floor of the main battery."

"Well…I have been."

She furrowed her brow. "Why?"

"It just made sense. I don't fit in the sleeper pods and I didn't want to make anyone uncomfortable by sleeping in the crew quarters. I am the only turian on the ship after all."

"You should have told me!"

"It doesn't matter now anyway." A smug expression flitted across his face as he looked at the way their two naked bodies were currently propped up against each other on the mattress. "If I'd known all I had to do to get a comfy bed was sleep with you, I would have made a move on you far sooner."

"As I recall, Garrus, it was me that made all of the moves. If I hadn't practically thrown myself at you in the main battery, then you never would have said a damn thing." She knew it was true. She wasn't the type to drop subtle hints, but that just wouldn't have ever worked on him anyway. Had she walked into the main battery half-naked, he probably would've stared at her for a minute and then asked her if she wanted him to turn down the thermostat because she was too hot.

"Don't pretend you didn't enjoy seducing me, Teagan," he shot back.

"Ha! I guess it was sort of fun seeing the shocked expression on your face. You looked like I'd hit you with a concussive round, not suggested we have sex."

"Well I wasn't exactly expecting you to start propositioning me mid-conversation." He fell silent for a couple of seconds. "Just out of curiosity, what would you have done if I'd said no?"

Shepard stared at him, not immediately sure how to answer such a loaded question. "I don't know, Garrus," she said slowly, "I suggested the whole thing on the spur of the moment, so I think I was kind of banking on you saying yes. I guess I probably would've pretended that I was joking, that you saying no didn't hurt like hell, to myself and to you, and then I would have cried whenever I was off duty for a week." She said it all lightly, as if she didn't really mean it, but she knew she did and, hell, he probably did to.

"I'm glad I didn't say no then."

"Me too. Very glad. I mean, I liked being friends with you before, but what we have now is so much better. A little terrifying maybe, but better."

"Yeah…"

Garrus stroked her cheek and then stared down at her. His eyes were full of heat and all the smugness from a moment ago was gone, but Shepard couldn't quite read the expression on his face. Then he started to speak to her in a soft rumbling voice, "I know I never really expected us to end up together like this, but I did have dreams about you sometimes. They started about a month after you picked me up from Omega. Some nights I'd be having a perfectly normal dream about Palaven or C-Sec and then you'd appear in it for no real reason. A couple of times you were even wearing turian facial markings. That was…weird." He paused. "The dreams confused the hell out of me. Then when you said you wanted to blow off steam with me, they started to make a lot more sense."

A pleased smile lit up Shepard's face_._ "That's really kind of sweet, Garrus."

She'd had dreams about him too of course, but they'd been a bit more on the graphic side. She'd looked up some information on turian mating habits long before she made her interest known to him, or Mordin had talked to her about the turians and the bees. Most nights her mind had proven to be more than willing to fill in any blanks.

Out of sheer embarrassment, she decided not to tell Garrus that, however, and settled on asking him a question instead, "Do you still dream about me?"

"Sometimes…but I've had the real you for the last three days. That's much better than anything my imagination can come up with."

"So, you haven't been missing the main battery too much then?"

"No, you're very distracting. We even got to play that wonderful game of chess."

Shepard managed to bite back the urge to argue with him about the rules again. "I'm just glad you haven't started to suffer from withdrawal symptoms," she said, "It's been days now since you last got to calibrate anything. Well…anything mechanical at least."

"Very funny, Teagan."

"I'm being serious! You usually spend hours and hours working at that console every day. Honestly, I don't know how you do it; the numbers would make my head swim."

"I find it soothing, but, look, there's only one thing I'm obsessed with on this ship and it's not calibrations. Or even my rifle."

She smirked at him. "Which rifle?"

"I'm trying to be suave and charming and you're ruining it."

"Sorry, sorry. What is it?" She knew the answer of course but she wanted to hear him say it.

"You," he said simply.

She laughed for a moment and then threw one of her legs over his, grabbed his face and kissed him. When she pulled away from him again, she made sure that she had his full attention before beginning to run her right hand over the hard plating on his chest. She moved it lower and lower, until she was stroking the softer plates he stayed hidden behind most of the time.

Garrus gently grabbed her hand. "Again? I thought you might want to get up soon since we're going on that, ah, mission later."

"I don't want to think about that quite yet. It can wait…for this."

"Well, if you insist, Teagan," he replied. He was still holding her right hand, but he trailed his free hand down the front of her body as soon as he was finished speaking, making sure to graze her breast before resting his talons on her hip.

"I do, Gar-bear."

"Teagan," he said firmly, "Please don't call me that or I'll start making up nicknames for you."

"Go ahead, there's not much you can do with my name."

"Trust me, I'll think of something. Or maybe I'll start calling you Commander all of the time."

"That could be kind of hot in certain, limited circumstances…"

He shook his head. "Damn you're annoying sometimes."

"Insult me all you like, Garrus, I know you love me really."

"Unfortunately, that's true."

They smiled at each other and he finally let her hand go…

* * *

A few hours later, Shepard was standing in the Normandy's elevator, finally dressed and with her hair thoroughly detangled. She'd just taken a stroll through the lower decks of the ship and now she was on her way to the CIC.

During the last three days the repairs to the Normandy really seemed to have come along well. There was still some work left to be done of course, but there were a lot fewer wires hanging down from the ceilings now and the worst tears in the hull plating had been sealed. The crew also looked like they were in considerably better shape than before, and, hell, Shepard guessed she probably did too.

It was strange to be alone in this elevator again, en route to the bridge, but no longer feeling exhausted or like she was right on the verge of having a nervous breakdown.

A small smile formed on Shepard's lips, which only widened when the elevator doors finally slid open and she came face to face Kelly.

"Kelly, how are you?" she asked, walking towards the redhead, who was standing in her usual position by the galaxy map.

"I'm fine, Commander," she chirped, with a pleased look on her face, "What brings you up here?"

Shepard shrugged. "Nothing much really. I'm just checking in, making sure everything's still okay on board before I leave the ship."

"Well, it's good to see you again." Kelly stared at Shepard for a moment. "I hope you don't mind me saying this, Commander, but you look so much better than you did the last time we spoke."

"I feel better. The last few days…they've been good."

Kelly grinned at her. "I'm glad! I must admit I was shocked when Dr Chakwas said you would be taking some time off. I thought she'd never be able to convince you to take a break unless she personally kept you locked up in the med-bay."

"Well, I wasn't exactly keen on the idea at first, but I…came round to it, and Miranda and Jacob seem to have been coping well." Shepard paused. "They have been right?"

"Yes…" There was only the slightest hesitation in her voice when she answered and Shepard guessed that was a good enough sign. "The crew are looking forward to your return tomorrow though, Commander. Miranda tends to be quite demanding…I think everyone has missed you."

Shepard laughed. "I've missed them too." Well, she had a little so technically saying that wasn't a lie. Most of the time, though, her thoughts had been on other, more immediate things.

"I still can't believe how much better you seem," Kelly said brightly.

"I wasn't acting…too strangely before was I?"

"No, Commander. You were more spaced out than anything else. Crewman Patel swore blind that she saw you sleeping against one of the bulkheads one morning."

Shepard had no memory of that. She sincerely hoped that meant it hadn't actually happened. "I was…just generally in a bad place," she said, "Thank you for being one of the people who tried to help me, Kelly."

The Yeoman smiled. "Anytime, Commander. I'm always here if you want to talk. In fact, I could even pencil you in for a proper counselling session sometime soon if you would like?"

"Thanks, Kelly," Shepard replied quickly, "That's a nice offer but I think I'm okay now. For the most part anyway."

Honestly, Shepard just couldn't picture herself ever opening up fully to Kelly. Sure, she could be good at her job sometimes, very good even, but other times she acted like a high school student. If Shepard was going to talk to anyone about her feelings or anything else touchy-feely from now on then she was going to talk to Garrus. She just hoped she wouldn't drive him too crazy with all her neuroses.

Kelly nodded. "That's fine, Commander. The offer will always be open to you if you change your mind."

"Thank you." Shepard shifted on her feet. "It's been nice talking to you today, Kelly, but I really think I should go now. I want to speak to Dr Solus before I head down to the hangar to meet Garrus."

Shepard went to walk forward, but Kelly stepped in front of her. "May I ask you something first, Commander?"

"Sure," Shepard replied.

"What's he like?"

Shepard looked around her. There were a few other people on the bridge apart from her and Kelly, but she didn't seem to be talking about any of them. "What's who like?"

"Garrus. What's he like, you know, in bed?"

A horrified expression came over Shepard's face. "Don't ask me that! Shouldn't you be trying to tell me I have unread messages at my private terminal right now instead?"

"No. Miranda told me if I tried to pass any messages onto you before your little trip today then she would strangle me. That's a direct quote. So...what's he like?"

"Kelly, I really don't think I feel comfortable answering that question."

"Why not, Commander? There's no need to be embarrassed about this kind of thing. After all, as a counsellor and an observer of alien and human behaviour, I'm just naturally curious."

Shepard still didn't particularly want to answer her. She knew that the Yeoman was probably already picturing the two of them together without being provided with any additional details. Back when Garrus had first come on board, Kelly had actually told her that she wanted to hold him and tell him that everything would be alright. That comment had left Shepard with a strange urge to keep the two of them permanently separated by a couple of floors at all times. She understood the impulse a lot better now.

"Well, Commander?"

Kelly was still looking at her expectantly. Shepard decided to give her a short response just to shut her up. "He's…good. Very thorough."

"I can imagine."

Of course she could. Shepard glanced towards Mordin's door, thinking about making a break for it, but then Kelly spoke again. "Turians are something else, aren't they, Commander? They have such power in their bodies, they're dangerous predators and when you go to bed with one of them, you're putting yourself utterly at their mercy. Then there's all the nipping, the ridges…"

"Kelly," Shepard said, cutting her off mid-sentence, "I have an idea, let's save the rest of this conversation for sometime when I'm drunk and won't remember it the next day."

"Oh." She sounded slightly disappointed. "Okay then."

"Great. I'll talk to you later, Kelly, but preferably about something else."

Shepard flashed her one last smile and then half-sprinted through Mordin's door. She found him standing in the middle of the room with a couple of vials in his hand, clearly working on the next insane experiment. She tried not to sigh with relief when she heard the door close behind her, leaving her alone with the salarian and putting a firm barrier between her and Kelly.

"Hey, Mordin," Shepard said, speaking more loudly than usual to make sure she got his attention.

"Shepard," he replied, "Did not expect to see you today."

"No…" She walked a few paces closer to him, "I was up on the bridge anyway so I thought I would come in here to see you. I…want to apologise for being so short with you a few days ago."

He didn't look up from his vials. "No need to apologise. Had already forgotten about it."

"Well, I'm still sorry. You were right about me being a little depressed and I guess I didn't like hearing it. I shouldn't have lost my temper."

"Loss of temper perfectly understandable in the circumstances, Shepard. Textbook even. Having a traumatic background combined with pressures of leadership bound to cause some emotional problems." He finally turned towards her. "You look much better now, however."

"Thank you."

He continued to stare at her. "Heard Officer Vakarian has been helping you with your recuperation."

"Ah...yes, that's true." Shepard had a sudden sense of dread about where this conversation was about to head.

"Things have been going well between the two of you?"

"Yes."

"Any chafing?"

"Some, but I've been using the lotion."

"No allergic reactions?"

"None at all."

"And you are both satisfied? Could offer more advice if either of you need it."

"That really won't be necessary," Shepard said in a strangled voice, praying that he'd run out of questions. This was shaping up to be worse than the first conversation they'd had about her relationship with Garrus_._ "We're both very, ah, satisfied."

"Excellent!" Mordin exclaimed, "Glad to hear things are going well. Turian-human couples still rare. Two species physiologically very different. Certain stigma also attached to such relationships because of the First Contact War."

"Oh." Shepard had never given the whole interspecies issue any serious thought, mainly because she'd been too busy obsessing about other things, but she hated the idea that people might be put off from being with the person that was right for them because of surface or cultural differences_. _"That's a real shame."

"Yes, yes, definitely," he said dismissively, "Was wondering, would the two of you be willing to take part in a case study?"

"A case study?"

"Yes. Would not need to take pictures of intercourse necessarily, just ask more questions with both of you present. For example, what position has worked best for you? How do you minimise chafing?"

"I…don't think Garrus would like that very much," Shepard said, hardly able to believe what she was hearing. Dear God! Why was everyone suddenly so obsessed with her sex life?

"Maybe you could check with him later."

A sudden realisation came over Shepard. "You're joking with me again, aren't you?"

"Perhaps…"

"Right, I'm going to go now."

Mordin waved one of his hands at her. "Wait. One last thing. Have some items for you." He put the vials he was still holding down and then walked over to the opposite side of the lab and picked up a box. "Mostly more lotions and ointments in case you are running low. Also datapads containing information packs on some advanced techniques. How to use your biotics on a turian effectively. That sort of thing."

"My biotics…?" Shepard asked without thinking, "Wait, never mind, I'll read the information packs."

She took the box off him. "Thanks for this, but I really do have to go now."

"No problem. Have work to finish anyway. Trying to develop treatment that will make human skin more flame retardant."

"Sounds…good, Mordin. Bye then."

Shepard clutched the box to her chest and then pelted out of Mordin's door towards the elevator. She hoped that Kelly might have left her post for a few minutes, but she was still standing right there.

"What's in the box, Commander?" she asked.

"Medical supplies," Shepard said while she freed one of her hands to call for the elevator. "Nothing even remotely interesting." She pressed the button again when the elevator didn't immediately arrive.

"Oh…" Kelly was still peering at the box, so Shepard clutched it even tighter. "Well…I hope the trip you're going on with Garrus goes well."

The elevator doors opened, but Shepard turned back towards the Yeoman one last time. "Thanks Kelly. For everything."

* * *

Shepard decided it would be best if she left the box securely in her quarters before heading to the hangar. She couldn't resist chancing a quick look inside of it when she was setting it down on her desk, however, and ended up going red in the face even though no one else was in the room with her. For someone with no sex-drive, Mordin certainly seemed to have a strange obsession with the subject.

Once she had reached the hangar, she saw that Garrus was already in the Kodiak, sitting in the pilot's seat. Even though the shuttle had been thoroughly repaired since the crash, Shepard still felt apprehensive about getting back into it. However, she'd already stalled this little mission for long enough, to the point where it was getting vaguely ridiculous. She'd been avoiding thinking about leaving all day, staying in bed with Garrus for far longer than she should have done and then wandering round and round the ship for no real reason. The Normandy had been in orbit of the planet below for a full two hours already and only now was she finally in the hangar.

Shepard hesitated for only a couple more seconds before striding towards the shuttle and jumping in beside Garrus. "Hey, big guy," she said, kissing his cheek.

His arms were folded across his chest, although he couldn't hide how pleased he was to see her. "You're late again, Teagan. You've developed a terrible habit of keeping me waiting."

"Don't tell me you're getting clingy already, Garrus. By my count, I'm only ten minutes late."

"Yeah, well, Tali still managed to corner me in here during that time."

Shepard raised an eyebrow. "Tali cornered you…why?"

"She said she was very happy that we were back together again, but that she'd come after me with her shotgun if I ever hurt you."

Shepard couldn't help laughing, although she actually thought it was kind of sweet of Tali to try to make sure that Garrus looked after her. Not that she was remotely worried about that herself, he'd always been there for her up until now and she knew that wasn't likely to change anytime soon.

"Did the little quarian scare you?" she asked.

"Well, she can be kind of frightening when she's all riled up and armed on the battlefield."

Shepard snorted. "I suppose that's true. Poor Garrus."

"Thanks so much for the sympathy, Teagan, I can tell you really mean it. I just wonder who else will want to have a little talk with me. Maybe Grunt will decide he doesn't like his 'Battlemaster' being pawed by a turian next."

"I really don't think Grunt will care."

"What about the Cerberus crewmembers?"

He sounded considerably more serious now, making Shepard wonder if this was something he'd been giving some thought to over the last few days. But he had no real need to worry. She wasn't going to let anyone else threaten their relationship after everything she'd already put him through all by herself.

She looked up at him. "They've all been fine so far and if anyone does develop a problem with us then they can get the hell off my ship. Preferably via the airlock"

"Sounds fair enough." Garrus uncrossed his arms and chuckled. "You know…I've just realised something. Cerberus funded everything on this ship, right?" Shepard nodded. "I wonder how the Illusive Man would react if he knew what you were doing in the bed he paid for."

"Probably not too well, though I guess he's already thoroughly pissed off with me for blowing up the collector base."

Shepard started to giggle, but then her eyes were drawn to the glowing control panel in front of her and she fell strangely silent. She wanted to keep joking around with Garrus, but she knew she was stalling again. She took in a long breath. "I guess we better get this shuttle moving soon, Garrus."

Before she could change her mind, she opened up a comm link with the Normandy's cockpit. "Hey, Joker, are we clear to go yet?"

"Yeah, you can start the descent whenever you want to."

"Great."

She closed the link again and stared down at her hands. Garrus was watching her carefully. "Are you sure you want to do this, Teagan? It's not too late to change your mind and back out."

"Yeah, I know," she replied eventually, "But I don't think I'm making a mistake. I've loved being in a bubble with you over the last few days, Garrus, but that can't last forever. It's not real life, not for us anyway. This trip might help me to finally accept what happened and, I don't know, move on or whatever. Or maybe it won't, either way it's probably fifteen years overdue."

"Okay then." He paused for a few seconds. "And you're absolutely sure you know how to co-pilot this shuttle?"

"Yes," she said, pretending to grumble at him, "I can't believe you're insulting my driving at a time like this." But she knew really that he was just teasing her to try to lighten the increasingly heavy mood which was falling over them. Somehow that made her love him even more.

She reached out to stroke the side of his face. "Thanks for coming with me, Garrus. I don't know if I could do this without you."

"Anytime you need me, I'll be here." He covered her hand with his for a brief moment before starting to operate the shuttle's controls.

Ten minutes later, Shepard was peering out of the window at the familiar and yet now unfamiliar landscape of Mindoir stretched out below her.

* * *

**One more chapter to go….**


	10. Home sweet home

**Last chapter ahoy…**

**Note: I had to rush Chapter 9 so I wasn't entirely happy with it. I've edited a couple of sections of it a little now, although I only had the time to make very small changes.**

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* * *

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The shuttle had been resting on Mindoir's soil for at least five minutes before Shepard found the strength to leave its confines and step outside. When her feet finally touched the ground, the first thing she felt was disbelief. Nothing had changed. Mindoir looked and smelt exactly the same as she remembered. The grass was still as tall and green, the sky as blue and the sunlight as bright. God, even the air blew across her skin in the same way as before, tickling her face and then pulling at strands of her hair.

And yet she was so different now, so much older, not sixteen, not a child with simple dreams, but a soldier who spent most of her days fighting for survival. Being here just didn't feel right anymore. How could it possibly? Mindoir hadn't been her home for fifteen years and, in truth, the planet had become more like a grave to her. It was, after all, the final resting place of her family.

She would see this trip out, however. It would be ridiculous to jump back into the shuttle and return to the Normandy after coming so far and dragging Garrus along with her for good measure. Undeniably though, a part of her already wanted to leave.

Shepard shuffled on the balls of her feet; she couldn't seem to move forward yet. She wished that it wasn't so quiet where they'd landed, that there was something more than the gentle sounds of nature to distract her from her own thoughts.

She'd helped all her team members tie up their loose ends before taking on the collectors, but in this moment she understood more acutely than she ever had done before how they must have felt when they came face to face with the problems from their past.

She'd watched while Miranda tried to save her sister, while Thane tried to save his son, while Tali fought fruitlessly to save her father, and even though she cared for all of them, still remained a little detached from what was happening around her. Hell, she'd stood in the middle of a corridor on the Citadel in front of Sidonis, calmly blocking Garrus' shot. He'd been staring down his scope at the man who had betrayed him, who was responsible for the death of his team, and she had stopped him from pulling the trigger. She'd been so utterly convinced that she knew what was best for him.

Afterwards she hadn't even taken the time to talk with him about what had happened in any real depth, continuing on in her familiar pattern of always trying to avoid difficult emotions instead.

"Teagan." Someone was saying her name, but the voice sounded like it was coming from far away. Still lost in her own thoughts, Shepard didn't move her glazed eyes from the patch of grass she'd ended up staring at to search for its source.

"Teagan," Garrus repeated, more insistently.

She turned towards him this time, focusing on his tall form long enough to notice the way his armour was shining brightly in the sunlight. Unlike her and the rest of the crew, he hardly ever wore anything apart from heavy armour. So far the only times she'd seen him in casual clothing was when he knew the two of them would be alone together in her quarters.

Today, she'd dressed in armour too, but she wasn't exactly sure why. There were no enemies left to fight here anymore. In fact, it seemed like there wasn't another soul apart from them for miles.

Garrus was speaking again, "Teagan, are you okay?"

"No." The word just seemed to slip out of her mouth.

He brought his hand up to her cheek, touching one of the few parts of her body left uncovered by her armour. "You look awful, like you did when we were freeing those prisoners from the batarians. All the colour's gone from your face. We can go back to the Normandy right now, I think maybe we sh...

She cut him off, "No. Not quite yet. Let's go for a walk instead."

"A walk?"

"Yeah. Could you hold my hand please?" She felt ridiculous for asking him that, but right now she needed to feel like she wasn't alone in this.

A worried look crossed his face, but he took her hand almost immediately and let her start to pull him away from the shuttle.

They'd landed in the middle of a large vacant field about a mile away from where Shepard used to live. She'd thought about visiting the nearby town or the site where the victims of the raid had been buried, but somehow this seemed more appropriate.

The whole idea of returning to Mindoir had stolen over her the morning after Garrus had woken her up from that nightmare. Suddenly she knew she had to come back, even though she'd said just two days before then that she wasn't sure if she would ever want to set foot on the planet again. She couldn't explain her change of heart properly to herself, much less to Garrus. Even so, he'd agreed to come with her straight away, just like she'd thought he would.

She'd been a little worried, however, that Miranda might object to the idea as a waste of resources. But she hadn't, nor had anyone else, and now here they were, walking across Mindoir's surface while the Normandy orbited the planet.

"Teagan," Garrus said, "Where exactly are we now?" She could tell how little she was talking was beginning to unnerve him.

She stopped in her tracks, and so did he. "Pretty much in the middle of nowhere," she replied. She pointed to the north of their position**. **"About fifteen miles up that way is where the centre of town used to be. It wasn't anything fancy, just some shops, a cinema, the space port and the school I was taught in."

Out of all of those places, she could remember the school particularly vividly. She'd never been one of those children who'd had to be dragged to each and every one of their lessons. From a very young age, she'd enjoyed learning new things, especially anything to do with history or literature. Then as she'd got older, she'd started to imagine that she'd be working in the school one day as a teacher, standing at the front of the classroom, rather than sitting at the back behind a desk. She could still almost picture herself living that life, but it just didn't seem to be a good fit for her anymore in the same way as it had done when she was a teenager.

Shepard turned round so she was facing away from the school and the town. "And my house was to the south of here. My parents were farmers so we also owned a few fields which we grew crops on all year round. They got me to help out sometimes, but I was basically useless. I was always much better at shooting things than growing them I guess. Our farm wasn't ever very successful anyway, even when I wasn't accidentally killing the crops by over-treating them, and we certainly never had much money. Not that we particularly cared, we had each other, you know?"

"Not exactly," Garrus replied, "But it sounds nice."

"Well, we had our ups and downs like everyone else, but, yeah, it was definitely nice. For the most part, we were happy with the simple life we had here."

Things had certainly seemed much less complicated back then. Mindoir had still been a small colony when Shepard was growing up, its total population not stretching much past several thousand. There had been few aliens on the planet and almost no-one owned their own spaceship. Transports went back and forth between the colony and other planets, but Shepard had never left. Mindoir was quite literally the only place she'd known until she was sixteen.

In all her travels since leaving, she'd never come across anywhere quite like it again.

It was so odd to think that she'd flown back and forth across the galaxy and now her feet were back on the ground they'd taken their very first steps on when she was a stumbling child.

Shepard looked down at her heavy, military-issue boots for a moment, before starting to move forward again. "Come on, Garrus, I'll show you exactly where my old house used to be. It's not far from here if we just head this way."

There used to be a rough path leading down to the cabin, carved out over the years by people's feet scrapping at the dirt, but grass seemed to cover most of it now. It didn't matter though. Shepard could have found her way back to her house from this point onwards blindfolded and with her hands tied behind her back. She'd followed the route thousands of times before, both in real life and then later in her dreams.

After a moment of two of walking together in silence, Shepard and Garrus came to a small stream. A plank had once been placed over it by Shepard's father to act as some sort of primitive bridge, but it had since rotted away to almost nothing so she ignored it, let go of Garrus' hand and simply hopped right into the clear water.

Once she reached the other side of the stream, she stood still, surveying her surroundings. When Garrus stopped beside her, she waved one of her arms out in front of her. "I used to play around here all the time when I was a child, mostly by myself because our closest neighbours lived a couple of miles away. Honestly, I think my parents just let me run wild a lot of the time, I was always trying to climb trees and falling out of them."

Garrus smirked. "Why doesn't that surprise me at all?"

"Well, I've never claimed to be particularly graceful." She paused for a second. "What about you, Garrus? Did you climb many trees when you were growing up on Palaven or did you stay indoors calibrating?"

"I didn't really do either, I grew up in a big city so there weren't that many trees and my 'calibration obsession' as you like to call it, developed much later in life."

They smiled at each other, eyes sparkling, for a moment, but then a strange silence began to stretch out between the two of them. After some time, Garrus broke it, "Do you still want to keep going, Teagan?"

"Yeah, I think I do actually."

They started to follow the last remnants of the path again, walking side by side and keeping up a lazy pace while they talked on and off.

Half a mile further down the trail, Shepard noticed that there were now brightly coloured flowers blooming in the grass all around her. The same ones her mother had spent hours looking after all those years ago. They used to just grow around their house, but without anyone giving them shape or purpose, Shepard realised they must have spread further and further as time went by. Even wild and untamed like this, however, they were still beautiful.

Shepard bent down so she could pluck one of the flowers out of the ground. She examined it for a moment while she waited for Garrus to come over. Once he was by her side again, she started to speak to him, "My mother loved all these flowers. She tried her best to teach me their names when I was a child. I can't remember of any of it now. I really wish I'd paid better attention."

She twirled the flower in her hand, looking down at the purple and yellow petals, before standing up and bringing it closer to Garrus' face. "This one was my favourite. I loved the strange mix of colours. Isn't it pretty?"

"Uh, yeah. Very pretty," he replied.

Shepard laughed for the first time since they'd landed and pulled the flower away from his face. "Sorry, Garrus, I'm starting to go on a bit now, aren't I?"

"You don't have to apologise," he said quickly, "I want to know more about you."

"Alright then. Prepare for more Shepard family history lessons in a moment." She tucked the flower into one of the latches on her armour. "We've almost reached where my house used to be."

Just another forty or so metres and she knew they'd be there. Shepard started to walk again, faster than before. She pushed her way through some over-grown bushes that were blocking her progress and then stopped in her tracks so abruptly that Garrus almost knocked her over.

The cabin was still there.

Shepard wasn't sure exactly what she'd been expecting to find when she finally arrived here, but that certainly wasn't it. A few months after the raid, she'd been sent an official letter telling her that the whole farm site had been sold onto one of the companies who were redeveloping the colony and that she would receive a few extra hundred credits on top of her meagre inheritance by way of compensation. Shepard had been so convinced that the cabin would have been torn down by them at some point that she had never once considered that she might end up seeing her old home again.

She tried to say something sensible to Garrus, but all that came out was, "Oh my God."

She wasn't sure if she was happy or unhappy to see the cabin. Either way, there it was, still standing after all these years. It was clear that no one had lived in it since the raid, but apart from a few signs of ageing, it looked almost exactly the same as Shepard remembered.

"I didn't expect the house to be here. Why is it still here?" She knew there was absolutely no point asking Garrus that question. How the hell was he supposed to know? But she did anyway.

"I don't know," he said, "Maybe it just got forgotten after a while because it was so far out from the rest of the colony."

"God…"

He fixed his eyes on hers. "Look, you don't have to go any closer to it if you don't want to. We can turn around."

"I know."

She looked between Garrus and the cabin, and then strode away from him without uttering another word. He called after her, but she kept going, almost as if some invisible current had caught her body in its flow. She found herself heading straight towards one of the cabin's large windows. When she reached it, she hesitated for a brief moment before clearing some of the dirt off the glass and peering in at what had once been her living room.

The room was completely empty now apart from a sad little shrub that had somehow managed to take root in one corner. All the furniture had been cleared at some point; even the comfy chairs and the lovely wooden table her father had once made were gone. Shepard felt surprised, though she knew she probably shouldn't. What had she been expecting? The room was hardly going to look the same as it had done fifteen years ago when her family had still been around to fill it with their warmth.

A clinking sound came from behind Shepard as she continued to stare into the grimy window, and then she felt someone place a strong hand on her shoulder. "Are you still alright, Teagan?" Garrus asked softly.

"All my family's things are gone." She knew that didn't answer his question, but she couldn't think of anything else to say.

"Yeah I noticed…if it's upsetting you this much then maybe we should leave."

"No…not yet. I need to see more."

She turned away from the window and began to stroll slowly around the rest of the cabin in a wide circle with Garrus following close behind her. She caught glimpses of more empty rooms through the other first floor windows, but never stopped moving, and as soon as she was back at the front of the house, she headed for the front door.

She wanted go inside. It might be a mistake, hell it probably was, but she knew she was going to go in anyway. Just a few seconds later, she already had one hand on the door, trying to force it open.

Before she succeeded, however, Garrus touched her arm. "I really don't know if this is a good idea."

"It's not," she replied, keeping her hand on the door. "But I have to do this. Help me. Please."

"Teagan…"

"Look, I can't come this far, find this place still here and not go in. I don't know why." She caught his eye. "Just help me get this damn door open."

Garrus looked at her for another moment and then wordlessly started to assist her.

Only seconds later, the door was ajar and Shepard was staring down into the dark hallway of her childhood home. She took a step forward into the musty gloom and turned back to Garrus. "Come with me. Please. I need you."

He nodded and she led him further into the small house, pausing only when she had reached the middle of her former living room. It felt so strange to back there without her family, like she had somehow entered a warped and empty version of the past.

But at least she wasn't completely alone. Simply knowing that Garrus was close by was enough to make the tight knot that had started to form in her stomach loosen somewhat.

Shepard gestured around her. "I know it doesn't look like much now and, honestly, it probably didn't look like much even fifteen years ago, but this was our living room. I used to spend hours sitting in here reading whatever I could get my hands on, magazines, books, leaflets anything." She tried to smile weakly at Garrus. "This was my favourite room in the house. My whole family used to like relaxing in here most evenings."

"That sounds nice."

"It was." She took another couple of steps forward and placed the palm of one of her hands flat against the wall. "There used to be a photo hanging right here of the four of us, my father, James, my mother, Anne, my little sister, Rowan, and, well, me obviously."

"Tell me about your family," Garrus said quietly.

Shepard turned round to him. "Really? I don't want to bore you."

"You won't."

She began to talk, but as soon as she did, she realised how difficult it was going to be to sum up her family in mere words. They had been her whole world for years. How could she possibly explain how caring her mother had been? Or how safe and secure being with her father had made her feel? Even describing the way they had looked seemed almost impossible. She did her best, however, and when Garrus started to ask her questions, she tried to form proper answers for him.

As she kept speaking, memories gradually flooded over her. She was six years old again, 'helping' her father bake cakes in the kitchen with melted chocolate smeared all over her face and hands. It was four years later and she was running through the fields, not because she was heading anywhere in particular, but simply because she felt like running. Then she was a teenager and her shocked looking mother was sitting with her on the living room sofa, explaining that she was going to have a brother or sister in seven months.

Eventually, however, the conversation started to dry up and Shepard's focus returned to the empty room in front of her. When she fell completely silent, Garrus came up behind her and wrapped his strong arms around her waist.

"So I know more about your family now," he said, "But what were you like before you left Mindoir?"

Shepard leant back against him. "Pretty much the same as I am now," she replied after a short pause, "I was a bit smaller and not quite so deathly pale because the sun always seemed to be shining here. I guess I was probably quieter and I could sometimes be a little more timid when I was meeting new people, but the only major difference I can think of is that back then I had no interest in being a soldier and travelling the galaxy. The idea of joining the military didn't even cross my mind, I was utterly convinced I was going to become a teacher and stay on Mindoir forevermore."

Garrus chuckled. "A teacher?"

"Yeah a teacher. Why is that so funny?"

"I don't know. I've just got so used to seeing you on the battlefield sending enemies flying everywhere. You're very…talented at it. If you hadn't signed up, then the Alliance would have lost a great soldier."

"Thank you." She paused, lost in thought for a while. "You know it's strange to imagine how differently things could have turned out for me. I mean if I had got what I wanted and become a teacher then I never would have ended up chasing Saren halfway across the galaxy or defeating Sovereign and the collectors. I probably wouldn't have met you."

She felt Garrus tighten his hold on her, as if she was somehow going to fade away from him. "That would've been a damn shame," he mumbled.

Shepard nodded and wrapped her arms around his. She couldn't have agreed more.

They stood together quietly for a moment, until Garrus spoke again, "Say we had somehow met anyway; do you think your family would have approved of me?"

She tried to picture herself bringing Garrus home to this cabin and then showing him off to her mother, her father, her sister, but it didn't quite work.

"Honestly, I don't know how they would have reacted," she said slowly. "They probably would've liked you a lot after they got over the initial shock. Don't get me wrong, they weren't xenophobes by any means, but there weren't many turians on Mindoir so they definitely wouldn't have expected me to suddenly turn up with one at the front door. Hell, I didn't even see one of you guys until I was six years old. My parents had taken me into town for the afternoon and I almost walked right into this big turian male with white markings all over his face. I remember being kind of scared."

"Scared?"

"Well yeah…I mean turians don't look much like humans and I was a little kid who'd never seen one before. You guys do have all those hard plates, sharp teeth and spikey bits. Besides, I bet you thought humans were strange when you first started to see them."

"I suppose that's true. But I'm pretty sure I wasn't scared of humans; I just thought you all looked kind of bulbous and squishy."

Shepard laughed. "You don't think I'm bulbous, do you?"

"No…but your body does have some nice round parts here and there."

Shepard pretended to gasp in horror. "I can't believe you're saying that in my parent's house, my dad probably would have thrown your bony ass right out of the front door."

"Was he like that with all your boyfriends?"

"Actually," Shepard admitted, "I never got as far as bringing a guy home to meet him."

"Really?"

"Really." She'd spent a couple of years hoping one boy at her school would ask her out, but in the end he went for a blond girl with blue eyes instead of her. Out of the three of them, she was the only one who was still breathing.

Knowing it was probably not a good idea for her to dwell on that thought, she pushed it to one side and kept talking. "I was only sixteen when the raid happened and kind of shy and awkward. It also didn't help that most of the boys knew I could beat them up."

"I know you could beat me up, but that just makes me like you even more."

"Thanks…I think I'm going to take that as a compliment."

"You should. It was meant to be." He stopped talking to nuzzle the top of her head for a moment. "I wish I could've met your parents, Teagan."

"So do I," she said. But it was never going to happen now.

A few tears gathered in Shepard's eyes as Garrus continued to hold onto her tightly, but she tried not to let them fall. She'd been doing so well up until this point and she didn't want to lose it now for no real reason.

She took in a breath, trying to calm herself, but then made the mistake of glancing out of the living room window. Her eyes locked onto it.

"Teagan, what's wrong?" Garrus asked.

"I…I just realised I was sitting right here when the batarians came," she forced out, still unable to tear her eyes away from the window. "I was reading…and then I heard this scream come from outside. It's all so blurred now, but I remember seeing my mother get shot and then noticing the way her body dropped to the ground so that her arms were spread out over the grass. It was like when someone lies down in the snow to make an angel shape, but there was a thin trail of blood coming from her head."

Shepard wasn't sure why she was suddenly telling him all of this in so much detail, or why she couldn't seem to stop her lips from moving. "My father and sister died upstairs I think. He was trying to save her. I heard the shots but I never saw the bodies because I was already at the back of the house. I killed one batarian and ran down the fields. I just kept running and running for miles. I should've done something, gone back, said goodbye. Something, anything useful…."

She tried her best to keep talking, to tell Garrus more and more, but her words started to mingle with sobs until she became completely incoherent. Seeing her distress, Garrus turned her round in his arms so he had a much better hold of her. She tried to thank him. No words came out, however, so she just stood there crying pathetically onto his armoured shoulder.

After what seemed like an age, though in reality was probably no more than a few minutes, she felt Garrus lift her body right off the ground. "Staying in here is doing you no good, Teagan," he said, "Come on."

Way past being able to resist the action, Shepard collapsed against him and let him carry her from the house. Once they were finally outside, he set her down on the grass and sat down beside her so that his body was touching hers. He looped one of his arms around her waist and then used his free hand to clear some of the tears from her face.

Shepard desperately wanted to stop crying, but it took far longer for her to calm down than she expected. By the time her tears were starting to dry up, she felt so embarrassed that she wished she could somehow hide from Garrus.

"God, I'm so sorry," she said, once her voice was relatively steady again, "I bet you're really glad you came on this trip with me now, aren't you, Garrus? You got to see some fields, an abandoned house and then had to help me through another crying fit."

"Teagan, stop trying to apologise to me," he replied in an almost exasperated voice, "It's alright for you to be vulnerable sometimes, even if you are a big galaxy-saving hero. And, anyway, there's no way I would have let you come here on your own after everything you've done for me. You've always been there when I've needed you."

Shepard shook her head, he'd said that before, but it wasn't really true. "No I haven't, not like this, but I want to always be there for you from now on." She paused. "I don't know if you've noticed, Garrus, but I've gotten rather attached to you lately and if you stay with me now, after going through all of this, then I feel it's my duty to warn you that you might end up stuck with me for the rest of your life."

"Good," he said simply.

"You really think you can cope with having me as your mate? I'm not exactly a low maintenance kind of girl."

"I survived a rocket to the head less than a year ago, so I think I'll be okay." He stroked her cheek. "Anyway, I want to look after you."

Shepard leant into his touch. "I want to look after you too."

He smiled. "Well then, I guess we can look after each other from now on in some sort of wonderful co-dependent mess."

"You make it all sound so romantic, Garrus."

"I know. Sometimes I think I missed my true calling as a poet."

As Shepard laughed, he pulled her into his arms so they were holding onto each other as best they could through two layers of armour. They stayed like that for some time, with the bright sunlight shining down on them, drying any further tears that ran down Shepard's face.

Eventually, she pulled away from him.

"Garrus," she said in a quiet voice, "I know this is going to sound completely insane to you, but I want to go back inside the cabin one more time before we leave."

He looked at her in disbelief. "What? Why?"

"I don't know if I'll ever be back here, so before I go, I have to say goodbye. I know I won't feel right leaving otherwise."

She stood up on shaky legs, but Garrus followed her. He faced her. "Teagan, don't do this if it's going to make you feel worse than you already do."

"I'll be alright." Or at least she hoped she would be. "Could you wait out here for me? I'm sorry, but I think this is something I need to do by myself."

He stiffly nodded his assent without saying anything more. She didn't like leaving him hovering there alone, clearly on edge, but she needed one moment alone with her memories.

"I'll be back in just a minute or two, Garrus," she said and then turned away from him.

* * *

Teagan Shepard walked back across the grass to the open door of the house she grew up in. She passed through it quickly, crossed the hall and then found herself standing in her old living room once again. She stared at the four walls surrounding her, running her hands through her hair, as she struggled to work out the appropriate way to say goodbye to three people who had already been dead for fifteen years.

"Hi, guys," she said eventually, "It's me. Teagan. Long time no see."

She knew she was probably talking to empty space, her words simply getting lost amongst the dust floating in the air. But she decided to keep going anyway on the off chance they could somehow hear her from wherever they were now. If they were anywhere at all.

After easing herself down to sit on the hard floor, she started to speak again, "I'm not quite sure what to say to you after all this time. I'm much better at pep talks now than heartfelt speeches so I'll keep it simple. I don't think I could put how much I've missed you all into words anyway."

"Some days it's been pretty damn hard to keep going without you, but I'm alright. Mostly anyway. Garrus, the, ah, friend I came here with, has been looking out for me lately. I don't think he's realised what he's gotten himself into yet."

Teagan self-consciously ran one of her hands down her armour even though she was alone in an empty room. At times in the past, when she'd been feeling particularly lost, she had sometimes stared out into the darkness of space and tried talking to her family. Or sat down in front of a desk and tried to write them a letter. But she rarely managed to say even this much before abandoning the attempt.

"I bet you never thought I'd end up like this, did you?" she continued after a moment, despite still thinking what she was doing was just a little mad, "Dating a turian, fighting to save the galaxy. Well, neither did I. I guess nothing ever turns out quite how you expect it to."

She paused again. "I know it took me far longer for me to come back than it should have done, but I was so happy with the three of you here that I couldn't bear the thought of being on Mindoir again without you. I didn't like even remembering the good times we had. Most days I tried to forget it all instead. That didn't work out so well for me in the end though. I'm sorry I tried. I shouldn't have. It was wrong of me. You all deserve to be remembered, not forgotten, but, God, it still hurts so much to think of you."

Tears were gathering in her eyes like before so she stayed still for a few seconds, waiting until she felt composed enough to continue talking. "I probably shouldn't stay in here much longer or I'm just going to start blubbering again. I've got lots of things to do anyway, kill some bad guys, save the galaxy, the usual. You know how crazy life can be. I guess I'll see you guys again sometime. Maybe sooner rather than later given what I'm up against. Maybe not. Who knows, I might actually get the galaxy united against the reapers. It could happen."

She wiped at her eyes and then raised herself back onto her feet. "Well, keep your fingers crossed for me anyway."

Teagan started to turn towards the door, but hesitated. She took a final look at her surroundings, before undoing one of her gloves and dropping it onto the floor.

"Bye."

Head down, she walked out into the hallway, only to collide with Garrus, who jumped like he'd been caught playing extranet games instead of calibrating in the middle of the day.

She raised one of the eyebrows on her tear-stained face. "Did your translator malfunction when I asked you to wait outside, Garrus?"

"Ah…no." He stumbled over the words slightly. "I was worried when you didn't come back out quickly. I thought you might need me. I…sorry."

He looked so sheepish that any irritation Teagan may have felt immediately vanished. "It's alright, Garrus. I'm not really annoyed." She shrugged. "Had our situations been reversed, I probably would've followed you. But you didn't need to worry yourself too much in this case. I feel, well, not good, but not awful either."

"You're sure?"

"Just about. She closed the gap between them and gestured towards the open doorway. "And I think I'm ready to go now, I've hung out with the ghosts of my past for long enough for one day."

"Okay," he replied, "We'll be back on the Normandy in no time."

* * *

A moment later, they walked out into the sunlight together, closing the front door behind them and sealing the cabin off from the outside world again.

Garrus reached out to take Teagan's hand as they began their trek back to the shuttle. "So…have you got any big plans for when you return to active duty tomorrow, Commander?" he asked.

She knew he was just trying to keep her distracted for a few minutes, but she decided to take the bait anyway.

"I do actually," she replied, "You're sure you want to hear all of this?"

"Yeah."

"Well, I've been thinking that we should probably hold a memorial service for the two crewmen we lost in the shuttle crash sometime over the next few days. I'm not usually…comfortable with that sort of thing, but they deserve a proper send off after what happened to them." She took in a breath. "Then, after the Normandy is back to being fighting fit, I want us to go after every single outpost mentioned in the data the batarian mechanic gave us. And take them all down. I'm not going to hang around and wait for the Alliance to do something about it, not when lives could be at stake."

Garrus let out a chuckle. "So I take it we're going to be busy over the next few weeks?"

"Yeah. Very busy. I also have some information on the shadow broker from Cerberus to pass onto Liara and God knows what that will lead onto. Though I was thinking, maybe once things have quietened down again, we could all take a week's shore leave. The crew's certainly earned it."

"Well I wouldn't object to having a few more days off with you."

"Me neither."

The cabin was about to fall completely out of sight so Teagan stopped walking and took one last look at it, trying to burn a clear image of it into her memory. There was no way of knowing how much longer it would be standing there for or if she'd ever see it again.

After she'd memorised the position of all the windows, even the number of tiles on the slanted roof, she turned back to Garrus. "Thank you for everything you've done for me today. For coming with me, for listening, for being there for me the whole time."

"It was nothing."

"No, it was most definitely something. I really owe you for this. If you ever want to talk or need help with anything, anything at all, I'm here."

"That's good to know." He seemed to hesitate on the verge of saying more so Teagan stared up at him, waiting for him to speak again. When he remained silent, however, she thought she must have just imagined it.

She squeezed his hand and smiled at him. "Let's go home, Garrus."

* * *

**Short epilogue follows…**


	11. Epilogue

**I wrote this little epilogue mainly because I wanted to leave this story on a slightly more positive note than the end of Chapter 10 does.**

* * *

Teagan stood in her private quarters beside her rumpled bed, yawning as she slowly pulled on the pieces of her dress uniform.

A full week had passed since she'd returned to the Normandy from the grassy fields of Mindoir and already the whole trip was beginning to seem more like a strange dream than something that had actually happened to her.

She'd hoped, rather naively perhaps, that visiting the colony might end up having had some kind of earth shattering effect on her. That afterwards she would finally be able to think back to her childhood with her family and smile. But of course things were never quite that simple.

She didn't regret the trip, however. Aside from anything else, it had been nice to show Garrus where she'd grown up and tell him more about her family, even if she could never properly introduce them to him.

A lot of shit had happened to her over the last fifteen years, but she knew with absolute certainty that one good thing had come out of it all. She had Garrus now, and she was going to do whatever she could to make their relationship work. Maybe they would even be lucky enough to have future together one day. If not, then at least she would have the privilege of sharing some of her life with him.

The short time they'd already spent together had left Teagan feeling less lost than she had done in years. Her evenings weren't so long and lonely anymore and waking up with Garrus in the morning just felt right. The only real downside to this was that getting out of bed had suddenly become considerably more difficult for her. She always wanted five more minutes lying there with him, even if she knew that she was already running late.

She'd been fairly good today, however, only holding onto Garrus' warm body for a little longer than she strictly should have done before getting up. Now, less than half an hour later, she was almost ready for duty. She'd washed, eaten and would soon be finished dressing. Her undershirt and pants were already on and all she had left to do was fasten her uniform jacket.

Once she had finally closed the last clasp, Teagan brushed herself down, straightening out some of the creases in the material. She stood still for a moment or two and then strolled over to her desk, which now proudly displayed a framed photograph of her smiling with Garrus rather than her battered old N7 helmet.

She hadn't thrown the helmet out like she'd initially planned, however. In the end, she'd simply stashed it at the back of her closet so that it was almost completely buried by clothes. She'd figured that she shouldn't try to forget any part of her past, but that didn't mean she had to be tortured by the sight of the helmet every single day. Besides, the photograph was a far nicer addition to her room.

She leant forward and picked it up with a smile on her face.

"Teagan," Garrus said from behind her, amusement evident in his voice, "Why the hell are you looking at that photo again when the real thing is right in here with you?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "I like it."

"Well, I'm glad that you do. Personally, I don't think it captures my best side."

They'd had it taken only a couple of days before, after they'd both stopped by Kasumi's quarters to have a 'few' cocktails. Teagan had got slightly tipsy, or very tipsy, depending on who was telling the story, and asked Kasumi to take a photo of them together in the middle of the evening.

The end result was ridiculous looking. Teagan was clinging to Garrus with a goofy smile plastered across her face and gazing at him with unfocused eyes. Garrus, who had been nowhere near as tipsy, was positioned rather awkwardly and didn't seem to know what to do with his hands. As embarrassed as he might have been though, he did look happy. And it had been a nice evening, bringing the three of them together for the first time since they'd returned from fighting the batarian slavers.

Teagan ran one of her fingers across in the picture. "I think you look good, Garrus."

He chuckled. "You're a truly terrible liar."

She put the frame down and turned round to him. He was still only half-dressed, standing on the other side of the room wearing just his black bodysuit and his boots. Teagan couldn't help admiring the way the skin tight material was clinging to his tall body, showing off every angle and revealing parts of him that were, regrettably, covered by heavy armour during most of the day.

"I really don't think it's that bad," she said, eyes still focused on him, "Though I have to admit, you do look even better in real life."

"Thank you. I try to stay pretty for you."

"Oh I can tell, Garrus. Honestly, it's going to be pretty damn hard for me to tear myself away from you this morning, especially with you still half-dressed like that." She smirked at him for a few seconds, but then her face became more serious. "You'll meet me back in here this evening though, won't you?

"Of course," he said, as if the thought of doing anything else had never once entered his mind.

"Great! I was thinking maybe we could grab some chocolate for me and some of the gloop you eat from the mess hall and then come back up here and watch a vid together."

"Sure, I'll do anything you want, provided it doesn't involve playing chess again. So what vid do you have in mind?"

"I'm not sure." She thought for a moment. "What about Fleet and Flotilla? I've wanted to see it ever since I heard that quarian and turian talking about it when we were in that bar on Illium. Apparently, it got awards for its portrayal of quarian and turian relationships."

"Alright then," he replied lazily. He didn't seem to care much about the choice of movie, but then they usually didn't make it the whole way through a vid before their attention began to wander away from the screen and onto other things.

"You know, I wonder if they're together now," Teagan said after a pause.

"Who?"

"The quarian and the turian from Illium. He was clearly crazy about her."

For some unknown reason, she wanted them to have ended up together, even though she doubted that the oblivious quarian had realised how her turian friend felt about her, much less decided that she shared those feelings.

Garrus smirked. "You could always track them down and eavesdrop on them again."

"I wasn't eavesdropping, I just happened to overhear."

"As I recall, you edged closer and closer to where they were sitting until they caught you listening in on their conversation."

Teagan felt her cheeks redden slightly. "Well…subtlety is not one of my strongest points."

"I know. I've been on the receiving end of your pick up lines."

Rather than trying to think up some clever retort so early in the morning, Teagan simply picked up one of his gloves from where it had been left lying on the floor the night before and threw it at him. She giggled as it bounced lightly off his chest and then went to lift the other one.

In a flash, Garrus was charging across the room towards her. Before she could react properly, he grabbed her with one hand, pulling her body against his. Teagan played as if she was trying to get away from him, though she had no real intention of doing any such thing, so Garrus wrapped his other arm around her, trapping her arms at her sides.

"Careful, Teagan," he growled, "You don't want to pick a fight with me that you can't win. I might have to take you down."

"I'd like to see you try, Garrus…"

He leant forward, placing his face inches from hers. "Oh, really?" He licked down her neck, making her squirm, and then nipped the soft flesh there, making her squirm even more. She hoped he would keep using his rough tongue and sharp teeth on her skin, but instead he abruptly pulled away from her.

He caught her eye. "Maybe we should finish this later, we can't have you being late for duty, Commander."

She held his gaze. "And you need to get your ass down to the main battery, Officer Vakarian, but, God, I wish we could both stay here."

"We'll see each other this evening. I think you can contain yourself for that long."

Well of course she could, but a part of her didn't particularly want to.

"I wish I had calibrations to distract me all day like you do, Garrus," she said, "I can't wait until the repairs are finished and the Normandy can finally get back to business as usual. The last few days have been so repetitive and dull." She let out a sigh. "How about you meet me for lunch later in the mess hall? It would break up my day a bit."

They'd been eating together more and more lately, but he seemed pleased with the suggestion. "If you think you'll be able to tear your attention away from your food long enough to talk to me this time then yeah."

Teagan was still trapped in his strong arms so she couldn't react much to what he'd just said, other than by glaring at him. "Garrus, stop insulting my eating habits all the damn time."

"Sorry, sorry," he murmured, leaning down to nuzzle her, "Lunch with you will be nice."

"It's a date then. Though I guess I should probably head up to the bridge now, I've got a lot of work to get through today." She tried to wriggle out of Garrus' hold, but he seemed to be very reluctant to loosen his grip on her. "Uh…you have to let me go so I can leave, big guy."

"I suppose I do. Shame…"

Letting out a small huff of disappointment, he finally released her. Teagan didn't move away from his warmth immediately, however, knowing it would be hours until she would be in her cabin with him again. Instead, she looped her arms around his neck and took the time to leave a lingering kiss on his mouth before finally starting to head towards the door.

She made it as far as the top of the stairs and then turned back towards him. He was just starting to gather the scattered pieces of his armour together, but he paused in his actions when he saw her looking at him.

"See you later, Garrus," she said.

"I'll be in the main battery if you need me," he drawled, "Counting down the seconds until we're together again."

Teagan laughed. "I should hope so."

Despite his ever-present sarcasm, she could tell by the heated way he was looking at her that he would miss her presence over the next few hours, though probably nowhere near as much as she would miss him.

She waved at him from across the four foot gap which now separated them and started walking again, making it as far as the elevator this time before pausing. She had hours of standing over the bright lights of the galaxy map ahead of her, mining planet after planet so the repair crews would have enough raw materials to finish their work.

The shift was going to be long and boring as hell. Quite frankly, she'd much rather stay in this cabin, lazing about with Garrus all day, but she'd get through the work somehow or other. Her duty as Commander and fighting the good fight was always going to have to come first and her relationship with Garrus second. It was that simple. But at least she had an evening with him to look forward to once her working day was over.

She could probably endure any number of horrors as long as she knew that she had Garrus to come home to at the end of it all.

A small smile forming on her lips, Teagan pressed the call button for the elevator. She'd be back up here with Garrus soon enough.

* * *

**Update (17/04/11): Sequel, 'Where You Belong', now up!  
**

**Final author's note (Updated 27/03/11)**

**So that's it: The very, very end.**

**Thanks to anyone who made it all this way with me, favourited the story or put it on alert! Thanks especially to anyone who took the time to review any of the chapters. ****I wanted this to be a sort of learning experience so your comments were all helpful and very much appreciated.**

**Personally, there are some parts of Home I'm happy with, others maybe not quite as much, but I'm definitely pleased I got the story finished.  
**

**I've now started working on a sequel of sorts to Home which will take Garrus and Teagan to Palaven for a while. This story was ****pretty much all about Teagan, so I guess I want to right this in the sequel by looking at Garrus' family situation and background in more detail.**

**I've already got a story plan laid out for it and I think the first chapter will post during mid-April (probably). I'm genuinely looking forward to getting stuck into a new story now.**

**Anyway, enough babbling from me, I hope you enjoyed reading Home. I definitely enjoyed writing it!**

**It's really been a blast :)**

**-WastedHeart**

**(One last thing: The shift to referring to Teagan by her first name rather than 'Shepard' at the end of Chapter 10 and in the epilogue was deliberate. It's supposed to indicate that she feels more comfortable remembering who she is now. Whether or not this comes across properly is another matter!)**


End file.
